A 20-second long video of a couple sharing an intimate moment while taking a dip in a water body has gone viral on social media. Commentary overlaid in the clip shames the duo for indulging in vulgarity at the holy Sangam ghat during the Maha Kumbh mela. Moments later, those surrounding them drag the man away and jostle him; the woman tries in vain to shield him.
The viral clip was shared by X account @NazneenAkhtar23, whose bio says that she aims to "raise the voice of the poor, Dalits, Minorities". At the time of this article being written, the post was viewed more than 1.3 million times and was also re-shared 1,000 times. (Archive)
Another X account, @RenukaAdivasi, also shared the same video with a caption in Hindi suggesting the irony of the couple coming to the Sangam for a holy dip to wash away their sins but were doing something else altogether. (Archive)
Fact Check
To check the veracity of the video, Alt News broke down the video into key frames and ran these frames through an image search.
This led us to an NDTV report from June 22, 2022. According to this, a mob beat up a man for kissing his wife while bathing in the Sarayu river in Uttar Pradesh's Ayodhya. The crowd decided to intervene and stop the 'vulgar' act to preserve the sanctity of Ayodhya.
The report led us to the full video showing the mob harassing the couple and verbally abusing and hitting the husband.
We also noticed that the official X handle of Ayodhya Police had commented on the video, saying that they had taken cognizance of the matter. Legal proceedings were underway against the accused persons, who had been identified by the police. Thus it was clear that the incident was from June 2022. (Archive)
Taking cue from these, we searched with keywords and narrowed it to that year. Several news outlets had reported on the incident (Links: 1, 2, 3), which transpired at Ram ki Paidi, a series of river embankments on the Sarayu river in Ayodhya. Many Hindus believe that taking a dip in the river there absolves one of their sins. The Sarayu is one of the seven tributaries of the river Ganga, considered sacred by Hindus.
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To sum up, the viral video is from 2022 and took place at the Sarayu river in Ayodhya. Claims that the incident is from the recently concluded Maha Kumbh mela in Prayagraj are false.
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Hello, my name is Ankit Sahu. I'm a 25 year old self-employed Pirate from the Chhindwara.