As the date for the Ram Temple consecration nears, several videos crop up on social media daily concerning to the ceremony. Most of these viral photos and videos are found to be misleading and fake in our fact check. We found another such video claiming that Jatayu has been released for the Ram temple in Ayodhya. But our fact check revealed that the video was old and belonged to Argentina.
What is the viral video?
A user named akash_pataal_ has shared a video on Instagram with the caption "Mei toh udna hi Bhul Gaya" (I forgot to fly). This was followed by tags of Ram Temple and Ayodhya in this post to establish that the video is from Ayodhya regarding the inauguration of Ram temple.
Screenshot of viral video on Instagram
Meanwhile, another similar video has been shared on Facebook by a user named Dinesh khilery mandla on January 5. The caption read, "When #Jatayu, who was locked in a cage for years, was released into the open #sky, he #forgot his strength, he forgot that he is the king of the sky, he forgot to #fly. In this video, there is a very #beautiful message hidden in it. Every person should know his strength, what he can do, what is his #power, same is the condition of a person who is always #influenced by the #signs and thinking of others, he wants to fly but He cannot fly because his self-confidence is lost and he becomes a mental slave."
A similar video went viral on Facebook.
India TV did a fact check
When the India TV Fact Check team found this video, they extracted some of its keyframes and reverse-searched them on Google. During this time, we found a news article on the DNA Hindi website where this video was mentioned. The concerned news was published on June 16, 2022 with the headline 'Viral Video: When freed from the cage, the bird had forgotten to fly, its wings kept flapping!'
The news article that went viral belonged to a DNA Hindi website.
In the article, it was written, "A video is becoming very viral on social media. In this video, a big bird is shown which has forgotten to fly. As seen in the video, perhaps this bird was in captivity for a long time. Because of this he forgot to fly. Well, claims are also being made about this video that it is incomplete and the bird shown in this video flies in the end." However, there is no mention anywhere in this news that this bird is Jatayu or that the incident took place in Ayodhya.
After this we looked at some more search results. During this time, this video was found on a YouTube channel named Shipa Cat. This video here was uploaded on 10 September 2023. It is said that the bird is a Griffon Vulture which has 8 feet long wings. This clearly shows that this bird is not Jatayu. However, here too it was not clear which country this actual incident took place from. But it became clear that neither this incident happened in Ayodhya nor this bird is Jatayu.
What is the conclusion of the investigation?
In our investigation, we found that the viral video was not from Ayodhya. This video is available on the internet even before the year 2022 and the bird seen in the video is not Jatayu but Griffon Vulture.
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