A video from 2019 showing a huge crowd gathered for a Territorial Army recruitment is being shared with a false claim that migrant labourers are being denied entry into the state by the Uttar Pradesh government.
The clip is being shared as hundreds of migrant workers are walking long distances on highways to reach their home states following the Coronavirus driven lockdown. In its third phase of lockdown, many states have eased restriction on business and movement of vehicles.
In the viral video, one can see an out of control crowd, with several people jostling for space and police personnel lathi charging to maintain control.
The 1.50 minutes clip is being shared with the caption, "Social distancing at UP Border."
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BOOM also received the viral video on its WhatsApp helpline number (7700906111) with a caption claiming, "UP has locked its border, not allowing its own state people to enter".
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FACT-CHECK
We broke the viral video into keyframes and ran a reverse image search using Yandex, a Russian search engine and found results dating back to October 2019 for the video. According to the uploads, the video shows huge gathering for a recruitment drive held by the Territorial Army in Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh.
The search results showed an YouTube video from October 15, 2019, uploaded with the caption, "Faizabad ta army rally bharti 2019".
Taking a hint from the keywords, 'Faizabad', 'army' we searched on YouTube, and found several other videos uploaded showing a different angle of the same crowded lane.
In these clips, one can see the same blue signboard and electricity lines as seen in the viral video.
We also found news reports on the incident stating that a large number of candidates had reached Faizabad for the Territorial Army recruitment drive held in October 2019, and according to reports as police used force to control the situation.
There were also video reports on the incident of vandalism during the recruitment drive in October.
On comparing the visual shots in the viral video and the October 2019 video, we found that they match.
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