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| - Fact Check: Claustrophobic video of packed narrow lane is NOT from Mahakumbh
The viral video is not from Prayagraj at all but from Barsana's Shri Radha Rani Temple.
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Following the deadly pre-dawn stampede at Mahakumbh on January 29, the Uttar Pradesh government enforced stricter measures for better crowd management and safety of devotees reaching Prayagraj. VIP passes were revoked and the Mahakumbh area was declared a "no vehicle zone" till February 4, the day after the conclusion of the third "Amrit Snan" on Basant Panchami.
Amid this, a video allegedly from Prayagraj showing a huge crowd stuck in a narrow lane went viral on social media. The text inside the video read: "Other side of Mahakumbh". Its archive can be seen here.
India Today Fact Check found that the video is not from Prayagraj. It is from January 1 this year, when many devotees visited the Shri Radha Rani Temple in Mathura’s Barsana.
OUR PROBE
Reverse-searching keyframes from the viral video led us to an Instagram post dated January 2. It stated that the video was from Barsana where many had gathered the day before. This makes it clear the video predates Mahakumbh, which began on January 13.
Further searches led us to another Instagram post that originally shared the video in question on January 1. The account "radharanibarsanaa" belongs to Shyam Sundar Goswami, a spiritual and motivational speaker who runs the NGO, Shree Ji Barsana Mandal Trust. Barsana is situated in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura district.
We then found a livestream from January 1 on Goswami’s Facebook account, which showed devotees flocking to Shri Radha Rani Temple in Barsana on New Year's Day, congesting the paths leading to it.
After around 2 minutes, Goswami reached a narrow lane. One end of this lane had a staircase with steel railing, while a board reading "joota ghar" (shoe bank) could be spotted on its other end. These two things can also be seen in the viral video. A comparison between the two clips can be seen below.
We also found other videos from the same spot shared on January 1 showing a huge crowd around the temple in Barsana.
We then contacted Shyam Sundar Goswami, who confirmed to India Today Fact Check that the video was not from Mahakumbh. It was shot near the staircase leading to Shri Radha Rani Temple in Barsana.
It is thus, clear that a video of a packed narrow lane in Barsana was falsely shared as a Mahakumbh visual.
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