Fake Firing Claims: Old Videos Passed Off as Delhi Protest Footage
From claims of gunfire at Rahul Gandhi’s residence to recycled clips alleging 13 dead in Delhi protests, OBC traces how old clash footage from 2019 and 2024 was repurposed into viral breaking news, and how routine demonstrations were falsely framed as deadly state violence.
Amid political tension after the INDIA alliance marched to the Supreme Court demanding the resignation of the chief election commissioner over the deletion of voters in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a series of dramatic video clips has flooded social media. These viral posts claimed that Delhi Police opened fire at Rahul Gandhi’s residence and violently suppressed protestors across the Jantar Mantar protests.
However, OBC found that the circulating visuals predate the ongoing protests and are unrelated to the recent events, highlighting how rampant misinformation and out-of-context clips are being circulated across social media platforms.
The viral claims
Police Attack at Rahul Gandhi’s Residence
On 13 October, the X (formerly Twitter) account @indiantiwari01 posted a video alleging that Delhi police attacked the opposition leader Rahul Gandhi’s residence and fired gunshots.
The post was captioned as ‘After witnessing yesterday’s massive public turnout, @DelhiPolice acting on @AmitShah orders, attacked #Rahul Gandhi’s residence. #Gunfire was reported. #Delhi must be shut down. People must come out onto the streets and raise their voices against this brutality.’
As of 14 October, the post had garnered more than 56.7k views.
Another account, @Diksha_sharma03, posted the same video on X with a similar caption, also alleging that Delhi Police attacked Rahul Gandhi’s residence and gunfire occurred.
The post has amassed 15.7k views as of 14 October.
Many users in the comments accused the post of peddling fake narratives and spreading misinformation. One comment read: ‘@DelhiPolice @MIB_India please take action against this Pakistani account….’. Another user commented, ‘Feel ashamed for sharing fake information.’
OBC conducted a reverse image search using keyframes from the viral video. The search led us to news reports from December 2019 about the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
According to the Times of India report, the footage comes from the anti-CAA protests in South Delhi’s New Friends Colony. The news report includes the full 56-second version of the viral clip, showing a clash between police and protesters on the street.
The Delhi Police flagged the content on 14 October and posted on its official X handle, clarifying that the video was old footage from a December 2019 incident.
They police have also warned that sharing misinformation is punishable and that legal action would be taken.
Protestors Killed in the Dilli Chalo Protests
On 10 October, an X user, Rakesh Kalotra (@Rakeshkalotra), shared the video with a caption, ‘Delhi is Bleeding 13 Killed ,Let the whole world witness what happened today in #Delhi. Delhi Police opened direct fire on young people. It has been confirmed that 13 people were killed and 33 others injured. Delhi Police has crossed all limits of brutality @DelhiPolice.’
Similarly, another account named @ClashFire also posted the same video and captions on X.
We investigated the viral claim and found no credible news reports or official reports from the current Dilli Challo 2.0 protests corroborating it as a recent event. We also analysed the keyframes of the viral video.
This led us to an article reported by the Associated Press dating back to 21 February 2024.
Similarly, we found that Press Trust of India (PTI) published the same visuals in their X post dated back to the 2024 farmer protests.
Our analysis found that the posts claiming to show recent footage from the Jantar Mantar protests in New Delhi are misleading. The viral posts recycle visuals from past events and misrepresent them as current protest footage. Numerous social media handles are intentionally misrepresenting context and timelines to spread false information.
