A one year-old video of protesters showing black flags to union minister Smriti Irani's cavalcade has been revived and is being shared with misleading captions claiming the incident is recent.
BOOM found that the viral video is from October 2020 when Uttar Pradesh Congress workers had protested against Smriti Irani's Varanasi visit in the backdrop of the Hathras gang rape incident.
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The viral video shows a group of people carrying posters and black flags trying to stop the car of Smriti Irani even as policemen try to stop them.
A Hindi caption with a Facebook post sharing the video translates to 'Big protest against Smriti Irani in Varanasi but none of the godi media channels showed it'.
(Hindi: वाराणसी में स्मृति ईरानी का भयंकर विरोध हुआ लेकिन गोदी मीडिया ने किसी भी चैनल पे नहीं दिखाया. ऐसी जानकारियों के लिए पेज LakshmiPratap Singh फॉलो कीजिये)
Click here to view the post.
National co-coordinator of Congress party, Manoj Mehta, shared the video from his verified Twitter handle saying 'Smriti Irani's grand welcome in Banaras, Ministers need security stronger than Z plus!'.
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The video has been shared with same caption from other Facebook pages too.
View posts here and here.
Protests During Smriti Irani's Varanasi Visit? Fact Check
BOOM did a keyword search with 'protest during Smriti Irani's Varanasi visit' and found several news reports about the incident from 2020.
An ETV Telangana report uploaded on the channel's verified YouTube channel a year ago shows the same video that is viral now. The title of the video reads 'Smriti Irani Faces Protests | Shown Black Flag in Varanasi'.
BOOM compared screenshots from the Facebook video viral now and the YouTube video uploaded in 2020 and found them to be the same.
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We also found news reports from October 2020 which stated that the Union minister's car was stopped by UP Congress workers who were protesting over the Hathras gang rape case. The protesters had raised anti-government slogans and demanded justice for the Hathras victim's family.
Irani had visited Varanasi in October 2020 to hold a dialogue with farmers and agriculture scientists.
Read reports here and here.
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