| schema:text
| - Fact Check: Viral videos of leopards attacking dogs in residential apartments are not from Mumbai
Facebook users have shared videos of leopards entering residential apartments and attacking dogs after number of trees were cut in Aarey Colony of Mumbai. India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that two of those videos are not from Mumbai.
Listen to Story
India Today Fact Check
One video is from Nashik and the other is from Shimla.
Since the cutting of trees in Aarey forest area of Mumbai, a number of videos of leopards entering residential apartments and attacking dogs are being circulated in Mumbai. Over 2,000 trees were cut between October 4 and 7 in Aarey by authorities to construct a Metro railway car shed amid protests.
Facebook user 'Ashish Vengurlekar' shared one such video with the caption, "Abhinav nagar Borivali east... Keep cutting more trees". The video is of CCTV footage showing a leopard attacking a black dog.
The timeline of the coloured footage shows that it took place on September 29. In the video clip, the dog, sleeping at the entrance of a house, is seen managing to escape the clutches of the leopard and run. The leopard runs behind it.
The archived version of the post can be seen here.
Facebook user 'Shaikh Sallu' uploaded another video of a leopard attacking a dog with the caption, "Abhinav nagar Borivali east". The video has dramatic footage of a leopard creeping up to a dog on a staircase where it is sleeping cozily at the footstep of a flat.
The leopard moves slowly and catches the dog by the neck as it is caught unaware. The timeline of this black-and-white footage shows that the incident took place on October 11.
The archived version of the post can be seen here.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that neither of these videos is from Mumbai. While the October 11 video is from Shimla, the September 29 one is from Nashik.
AFWA probe
Video 1
AFWA first went through the September 29 video. A reverse search of a screen grab of the video took us to a Hindustan Times report that said the incident is from Deolali in Nashik. India Today had also carried this footage on October 14 saying it was from Amreli in Gujarat. However, it was corrected later on.
AFWA searched the Internet for a leopard being sighted in Deolali and found that a person by the name of Dhaval Khatiwala had uploaded this very video on October 12 stating, "My dog Lizzie was attacked by the leopard by jumping through a compound wall 6 feet high, and was taken after a fight of 5 minutes(not captured in CCTV, only sound captured) She is no more..."
AFWA managed to get in touch with Dhaval's brother Malav, who said, "My house, Shiv Kripa bungalow, is located on Barnes School Road near Malhari Baba Nagar in Deolali. This leopard had entered my house and even the other CCTV cameras in the bungalow captured this. The leopard killed my pet."
Malav shared footage of that moment from other CCTV cameras as well which establishes that this viral video is indeed from Deolali in Nashik.
Video 2
AFWA then went through the October 11 video. A reverse search of some frames of the video led us to news reports of News 18 and Punjab Kesari.
According to these reports, this incident is from Shimla in Himachal Pradesh. Around 4am, the leopard had climbed up a building to where a dog was sleeping. Even as the leopard held the dog by its neck, the latter was struggling desperately and barking loudly that woke up people inside the house.
This incident took place on October 11 and residents said that this area in Shimla being adjacent to a forest, there have been frequent leopard sightings in residential complexes.
Conclusion
Abhinav Nagar is an area in Borivali East in Mumbai adjoining Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Leopards have been sighted here in 2016 about which reports have appeared.
A leopard was last seen in a residential complex in Mumbai on April 1 this year. News about the incident can be read here. However, no leopard has been spotted in Mumbai recently.
Thus, the viral videos of leopards attacking dogs in residential areas have nothing to do with Mumbai.
(With inputs from Pravin Thackeray in Nashik)
Please share it on our at 73 7000 7000
You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)