As India’s Kumbh Mela ended February 26, 2025, footage of fireworks and a laser present circulated in social media posts falsely claiming it confirmed the huge Hindu competition’s final day. The clip racked up 1000’s of views, but it surely predates the gathering by a number of months and depicts one other celebration alongside the banks of the Ganges river within the northern metropolis of Varanasi.
“Maha Kumbh ends, now this second won’t ever come once more in life,” says a Hindi-language X post shared February 26.
It features a video of individuals in boats watching the sky lit up with fireworks and a laser mild present. A Hindi textual content overlay reads: “First and final Maha Kumbh of life.”
Screenshot of the false publish taken March 3, 2025
The video unfold elsewhere on Facebook and Instagram because the six-week Hindu religious gathering wrapped up in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh (archived link). Organizers say a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of devotees attended the gathering.
Feedback from social media customers “hailing the concluding ceremony” counsel they believed the declare a couple of fireworks and laser present.
Nevertheless, reverse image searches utilizing keyframes from the clip discovered one other video {that a} images Instagram account posted November 15, 2024 (archived link).
Screenshot comparability of the video shared within the false posts (L) and the unique video posted on Instagram
AFP contacted the Instagram deal with managed by Ankit Dixit, who confirmed the video was filmed in Varanasi in November 2024.
“I filmed the video throughout Dev Deepawali celebration on banks of river Ganga in Varanasi and revealed it the identical evening on my social media platforms,” Dixit advised AFP on March 3, referring to another Hindu festival (archived link).
Indian information company ANI additionally shared glimpses from the celebration in a November 15, 2024 X post (archived link).
AFP discovered no such studies about fireworks on the Kumbh Mela’s concluding ceremony, though drones lit up the sky on more than one occasion throughout the occasion.
State broadcaster DD News reported an air present performed by the Indian Air Pressure “over the mela space marked the top of the 45-day celebration” (archived link).
AFP has fact-checked different misinformation concerning the Kumbh Mela here.
