In the wake of the recent riots in Delhi, a footage of a distressed family complaining about chemical gases being pumped into their house is going viral on social media. Captions shared with the video links it to the recent riots with the claim that Delhi Police is pumping gas into Muslim households in Delhi's Jafrabad neighbourhood. The claim is false as the video has existed since December 17, 2019, and is unrelated to the riots that took place in Delhi between February 23 and 25, 2020.
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The 39-second clip was tweeted out by user Dinesh Mishra SP (@DineshmishraRm) on February 25, 2020 with the following caption:
English caption (translated from Hindi): "It is a heartbreaking incident. The video is of Delhi's Jafrabad, Delhi Police is releasing chemical gas in Muslim households which has left little kids in a bad state. Have some shame, at least think about these kids."
Original Hindi caption: "दिल दहला देने वाली घटना। #दिल्ली के जफराबाद का वीडियो है, दिल्ली पुलिस मुसलमानों के घरों में केमिकल गैस छोड़ रही है जिससे छोटे छोटे मासूम बच्चों की हालत बेहद खराब है शर्म करो कम से कम इन बच्चों का तो ख्याल करो।"
It was retweeted more than 1000 times, garnering around 1100 likes.
The same video was found viral on Facebook as well, along with the exact same caption.
Fact Check
BOOM found a logo of "CTV News India" on the video, which directed us to an obscure YouTube channel that goes by the same name and logo, upon performing a keyword search. Going through the list of videos, we found the original video posted by the channel on December 18, 2019 - just after widespread violence and crackdowns took place in various parts of Delhi on December 15, 2019.
Searching for the caption on Facebook and Twitter, we found the same video being shared with the same caption since December 17, 2019 by multiple users, including CTV News India's Facebook page.
BOOM could not independently verify the context behind the footage. We also performed multiple keyword searches to find instances of chemical gases being released into households, but could not find any relevant link.
However, having existed on the internet for more than two months, the video is unrelated to the recent spate of violence in North East Delhi which left more than 20 people dead.