HCU land row: Video of goats killed in Uttar Pradesh village fire falsely shared
The story uses only screenshots and not the actual video in view of the graphic nature of the footage.
Amid the outcry over the Telangana government’s clearance drive of the Kancha Gachibowli forested land near the University of Hyderabad (UoH), a video of burnt animal corpses has gone viral. In February this year, the Congress-ruled Telangana government decided to auction off 400 acres of forest land next to the university to build IT parks. The location is believed to have prime real estate potential, and the government argues the “development” would bring in a lot of investment and jobs.
The video is being shared with the claim that animals were killed in the name of development.
X user Ashok Bauddha shared the video using the hashtag #HyderabadCentralUniversity and wrote, “Destruction is happening in the name of development, today we have to see how many people protest against the government which is destroying the habitat of voiceless birds and animals”. (Archived link)
Verified X user ‘@1K_Nazar‘ also tweeted the video with a similar claim. (Archived link)
Verified X user ‘@ManojSh28986262‘, who has been found spreading false and misleading information on several occasions, also shared a video with a similar claim. (Archived link)
Several Facebook and Instagram users also shared the footage with the same claim.
Click to view slideshow.
Fact Check
Alt News performed a keyword search using terms related to the viral claim. We did not find any news reports covering any arson incident or fire at Hyderabad Central University.
We then performed a reverse image search using frames taken from the viral video. We found the source video posted on March 5, 2025 on the Instagram account of a user named @abisekabisel. This account had posted a few more arson related videos on the same day, i.e. on March 5.
Taking a closer look at these videos, we noticed that in the comments section of one such post dated March 5, 2025, a user mentioned that Bishnupur was where the incident supposedly occurred.
Continuing our investigation, we came across a news report by Amar Ujala dated March 6. According to the article, 21 houses were burnt in a fire caused by a spark in cow dung in Majra Vishnupur of Gram Panchayat Babaura of Majhgain police station area of Lakhimpur Kheri on the afternoon of March 5. While four goats died in the fire, property worth lakhs of rupees was also damaged.
To sum it up, an old video of goats killed a fire in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh, on March 5 is falsely being shared as animals killed during an attempt by the Telangana government to destroy forest land for the construction of IT infrastructure near the Hyderabad Central University.
The post HCU land row: Video of goats killed in Uttar Pradesh village fire falsely shared appeared first on Alt News.
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