On March 31, the Telangana government began a major forest clearance drive in the Kancha Gachibowli area, near the University of Hyderabad, home to many different species of flora and fauna. The move faced major protests by several students and environmentalists. Amid this, a video went viral on social media in which a bulldozer is operating in the dark, while a flock of peacocks can be heard in the background. Sharing the clip, many social media users, including students, politicians and social activists, claimed that peacocks were crying owing to the loss of habitat.
Soon after this, supporters of Telangana Chief Minister, Revanth Reddy circulated an alleged fact check on social media. In this so-called fact check, the viral video in which peacocks can be heard screeching was juxtaposed with another video showing just bulldozers operating without any sound of peacocks. Reddy's supporters shared the comparison of the two videos to claim that the clip in which peacocks cannot be heard is actual footage and the other one (where peacock sounds were heard) was fake, likely with audio added later.
X account @TelanganaGalam_ shared the comparison of the two videos and wrote that those "who posted statuses and stories thinking peacock cries were real should watch this." The user also claimed this was a fake social media campaign launched by the opposition party, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).
Ram Mohan Reddy, media and communication president of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee, also shared the alleged fact-check with the same claim.
The X account @Revanth_Sainyam, which claimed in its bio that it was associated with CM Revanth Reddy, also amplified the claim. "They started flattening government land only after the peacocks and deer were sent back to the university. Even celebrities who are reacting without knowing it, know what is true and react accordingly," the post's caption read.
Fact check
First, we must clarify that what was being shared on social media as the sound of peacocks "crying" is just the noise peacocks usually make; there is no evidence that the peacocks were actually crying, so that cannot be verified.
Second, we tried to verify the location of the viral video. To do this, Alt News tried to match frames from the video with locations around the University of Hyderabad and discovered that one frame of the viral video matched the picture in the university's gallery on Google Maps. This was uploaded in 2022. So, it was clear that the video was from near the University of Hyderabad campus.
Through sources, Alt News then reached out to the person who recorded the viral video. This person, Rajat Kumar (name changed on request), sent us the original clip, which was one minute and nine seconds long. Along with this, he also shared two other videos, which were recorded from his mobile phone at the same time as the viral video. (For transparency, we have uploaded the original files of all three videos here.)
When we examined them through an open-source metadata extraction tool, we found the creation date (2025:03:30 21:43:37 UTC), which, when converted to Indian Standard Time, is 3:13:37 hours (3:13 am) on March 31. We were also able to see that the frame width and height were 3840x2160 and it was taken with an 8.3 megapixel camera.
Kumar also shared a recording from his mobile phone with us. The details of the video show the time of recording as 3:13 am on March 31 and the frame width and height as 3840x2160, and 8.3 megapixels, which matches the information obtained through the metadata extraction tool.
We also checked the creation date of the two other videos sent by Rajat Kumar through the metadata extraction tool and found that the second video was recorded at (2025:03:30 21:25:02 UTC) i.e. at 2:55:2 hours IST (2:55 am) on March 31 and the third video was recorded at (2025:03:30 21:45:47 UTC) i.e. at 3:15:45 hours IST on March 31. The two videos also had the same frame width and height of 3840×2160, along and was recorded with an 8.3 megapixel camera. In other words, we were able to verify that all three videos were recorded from the same mobile phone.
For additional verification, we asked Rajat Kumar* to record another video from the same mobile phone and send us the original file so that we could compare the metadata of that video with the previous three videos. He sent us a video recorded on 12 April at 2:59 am (Original file). We checked the creation date of this video through the metadata extraction tool and found that it was recorded on 2025:04:12 09:29:58 UTC. i.e., April 12 at 2:58:59 hours IST (2:58 am). Like the other three videos, this one also displayed a frame width and height of 3840x2160 and resolution of 8.3 megapixels.
Importantly, the media creation and modification dates in the metadata of all the videos we verified were the same, which confirms that the viral clip is authentic and was not tampered with. Any claims that the audio may have been added later do not hold because the original recorded video has the sound and the metadata tool doe snot show any modifications to this.
To sum up, the investigation shows that the video with the sound of peacocks is not fake. The comparison videos that are being circulated as "fact checks" by Reddy's alleged supporters to claim that no sound of peacocks could be heard are not true.
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Hello, my name is Ankit Sahu. I'm a 25 year old self-employed Pirate from the Chhindwara.