By Hazel Gandhi
A video showing pilgrims dressed in orange and green clothes at Mecca's Kaaba is viral online with the false claim that they are Hindus and are celebrating the recent inauguration of the Ram temple at the Muslim holy site.
BOOM found that the claims are false, the video shows an Indonesian pilgrimage and is unrelated to the Ram temple inauguration.
The Ram temple was inaugurated on January 22, 2024 and the ceremony revered by Hindus in India as well as overseas. Videos of temples across the United States celebrating the event as well as a road show in Maryland went viral online, among other countries.
Amid this, a video purporting to show Hindus at Mecca is viral online. The video was shared on Instagram with the caption, "On the occasion of the construction of Ram temple, a group of sadhus from India reached the Kaaba of Mecca to preach Hindutva. The scene became wide with pride. Share as soon as you see it."
(Original text in Hindi: "राम मंदिर बनने के उपलक्ष्य में भारत से साधुओं की एक टोली पहुंची मेक्का के काबा में हिंदुत्व को प्रचार करने। सीन गर्व से चौड़ा हो गया। देखते ही शेयर करे)
Click here to view the post.
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FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the video is unrelated to the Ram temple inauguration and shows Indonesian pilgrims, not Hindus.
We ran a reverse image search of some key frames from the viral video on Yandex and found a YouTube video shared on November 9, 2022. The video showed women dressed in the same attire as the ones in the viral video. The video's title, translated from Indonesian to English read, 'Umrah 2022 - Madinah City Tour Pilgrimage | Congregation An Namiroh Group 01 November 2022'
Taking a clue from this, we ran a search for 'An Namiroh'. We found that it was an Indonesian travel agency called An Namiroh Travelindo that organised Umrah, the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca.
We ran a search for An Namiroh Travelindo on YouTube and found several videos from their channel where Indonesian pilgrims were seen wearing the same orange and green attire.
The travel agency's website also carried descriptions of their travel packages along with a representational image of a model dressed in the same clothes.
Click here to view.
The Instagram page of An Namiroh carries several videos of people dressed in the same attire during the pilgrimage.
Below is a comparison between the viral video and other videos of the pilgrimage organised by An Namiroh Travelindo
We also found that the bags of the people in the viral video carried An Namiroh's logo.
Additionally, we found that the viral video was shared on YouTube on January 17 and 18, before the inauguration of the Ram temple took place.
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