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| - Fact Check: Viral video of massive crowd at Bengaluru market wasn't shot this year
A video going viral on social media claims that despite Covid-19 regulations, massive crowds are thronging Bengaluru's KR Market for Varamahalakshmi Vratam festivities.
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India Today Fact Check
KR Market is shut till August 31. The viral video is from last year.
Varamahalakshmi Vratam is a popular festival in South India to propitiate the Goddess Lakshmi. Celebrated in July or August, as per dates, it is a time of buzz in the markets and streets. This year, the festival was celebrated on July 31.
In this context, a viral video on social media shows massive crowding at a market with the claim that this is Bengaluru’s KR Market on Varamahalakshmi Vratam. Netizens expressed alarm at the close interaction among people and lack of social distancing.
# KR Market #Bangalore today special #varalakshmivratam #VaraMahalakshmi #fridaymorning #FridayFeeling @BBMPCOMM @Jaggesh2 @ganeshbandla @MahelaJay @directorprems #Citymarket @raginidwivedi24 @ANI @ndtv @AlwaysRamCharan pic.twitter.com/hrrMevc7Rd— Narendra_Krishnappa (@Narendra_K1208) July 31, 2020
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be misleading. The viral video is from last year. The Bengaluru city administration has shut KR Market, one of India’s largest flower markets, till August 31 due to Covid-19.
The archived versions of some of the viral posts can be seen here, here and here.
AFWA probe
Using a combination of InVID and keyword search, we came across longer versions of the same video on YouTube. The captions of the videos, uploaded last year, say they were taken at KR Market in Bengaluru.
We also found that the same video was uploaded on Facebook as part of Varamahalakshmi Vratam celebrations in 2019.
As the video went viral and created panic among netizens, N Manjunatha Prasad, commissioner of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike (BBMP), clarified through his official Twitter handle that KR Market is closed till August 31, 2020, due to the pandemic.
KR Market & Kalisapalya will continue to be closed till August 31, 2020.
, KR & : 31-08-2020 . .— N. Manjunatha Prasad,IAS (@BBMPCOMM) July 31, 2020
Despite strict regulations, RK Market had seen heavy rush of customers on July 20 before the onset of Shravan, a holy month for Hindus. Since then, it has been closed by the city administration.
Hence, the claim that crowds thronged Bengaluru’s RK Market on Varamahalakshmi Vratam this year is false. The viral video is from last year. This time, the market has been closed till August 31 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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