Amid the farmers’ protest, a video of a massive fire on a flyover is doing the rounds on social media, claiming that the government has set the tractors of the farmers on fire, causing the big explosion.
The text on the video in Hindi reads: सरकार ने किसानों के ट्रेक्टर में आग लगा दी उसकी वजह से बहुत बड़ा धमाका हो गया (English translation: The government set fire to farmers’ tractors, resulting in a huge explosion.)
The above post can be seen here (archive)
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above post, and found it to be misleading.
Putting the video keyframes through Reverse Image Search, the NM team came across several news reports carrying the screengrab from the same video. The reports, dated January 3, 2024, suggests that the incident took place in Punjab’s Ludhiana where an oil tanker overturned and burst into flames. These reports can be seen here, here and here.
We further found the same video in an NDTV report on their official YouTube channel, dated January 3, 2024.
It is to be noted that the ongoing farmers’ protest demanding MSP started from February 13, 2024.
Hence, it can be concluded that the video in question is from an incident which took place over a month before the farmers’ protest.
