By: Rajini KG
February 29 2024
2020 video of Akhilesh Yadav in Kanpur shared as 'meeting with protesting farmers'
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Screenshot of the viral post circulating online. (Source: Instagram/Modified by Logically Facts)
Fact-Check
The Verdict False
The video depicts a crowd assembling during Akhilesh Yadav's visit to UP's Kanpur, where he met families of those who died in the anti-CAA protests.
Claim ID 7c43e413
What’s the claim?
A video of a large crowd surrounding a white car has been circulated online with claims that it depicts Samajwadi Party leader and former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav, arriving in New Delhi. The purpose of his visit, according to these claims, was to meet with farmers protesting at the capital's borders. These farmers are demanding a minimum support price (MSP) for their crops, among other requests. Archives of such posts can be accessed here and here.
Screenshot of the viral post circulating online. (Source: Instagram/Modified by Logically Facts)
However, this video is old; it actually captures a moment from Akhilesh Yadav's visit to Kanpur in January 2020, bearing no relation to the ongoing farmers' protests.
Here’s the fact
Through a reverse image search, we found the same video on a Facebook page called ‘Dynamite News Hindi’ posted on January 9, 2020. The post states that Yadav met the family of a protestor who died during demonstrations against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), on December 20, 2019.
Further verification through news reports confirmed these details. On January 10, 2020, the Hindi news publication Amar Ujala reported on Yadav's visit to Babu Purwa in Kanpur. According to the report, during his visit on January 9, Yadav met with the families of Aftab Alam, Raees Khan, and Mohammad Saif, all of whom had died in anti-CAA demonstrations. He provided each family with a cheque for Rs 5 lakh and called for the Supreme Court to investigate the deaths.
The CAA, passed in 2019, grants Indian citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian immigrants from neighboring countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan — who entered India before December 2014. Large-scale protests were held against the law, which was deemed exclusionary of Muslim immigrants.
The Indian Express reported that on December 20, 2019, about 13 Muslims were injured by gunfire during protests against the CAA in Kanpur, leading to the deaths of Alam, Khan, and Saif. The police filed an FIR against all 13 injured individuals and others involved in the violence on charges of rioting, according to the report.
Yadav and the Samajwadi Party’s X (formerly Twitter) account also shared images from his visit to Kanpur, showing visuals similar to those in the viral post. This evidence confirms that the video in question originates from 2020 and not 2024.
The verdict
The viral video, dating back four years to an event in Kanpur where Akhilesh Yadav visited families of individuals killed during anti-CAA protests, has been misrepresented with false claims. It has no connection to the farmers' protests or to Delhi. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.