On May 14, Muslims celebrated Eid across India amid coronavirus restrictions. In the backdrop of this, a video of an overcrowded marketplace is getting viral on social media with a claim that it is of Jafrabad, Delhi, where Muslims are violating COVID-19 lockdown norms.

A Facebook user name Ritesh Jain shares a video claiming that "From Zafarabad, New Delhi...Looks like Prime Minister Modi is rallying for Delhi elections right now."(Translated from Hindi)

The same post is also widely shared on Twitter with the same claim. 

Fact Check

In our investigation, we found that the viral claim is misleading. The video is from Lahore, Pakistan. It has nothing to do with India. 

After doing reverse image research on google using related keyframes, we found that the same video was shared by a Pakistani politician, Rizwana Ghazanfar on April 27, 2021, claiming it to be of Pakistan.

Then, we conducted a search on YouTube using relevant keywords and found a video by Digital Today published on 3 May 20121, which did a ground reporting on how people are violating coronavirus norms. As per the description of the video the visuals are from Ichhra Bazaar in Pakistan’s Lahore.

Assistant Commissioner Model Town Lahore Ibrahim Arbab posted photos on April 27, 2021, with the caption, "Assistant Commissioner Model Town visited Liberty and Ichra markets along with police and rangers teams to ensure disbursement of crowds and to take action against violations of SOPs. Overall 15 shops were sealed and several warned."

We also find a Pakistani news report published on 28 April 2021. According to the report,  the civil administrative officials, army troops visited various parts of the city, shopping markets, and malls to ensure that people are violating Covid19 rules.

In conclusion, A video of an overcrowded marketplace from Pakistan’s Lahore was used to falsely claim that Muslims in Delhi are violating COVID-19 lockdown norms. The video has nothing to with India.