Was India’s Independence day celebrated at Trafalgar Square, London with Tricolor in sky ?
As jingoistic messages after Republic Day floated around, one of the viral videos claimed to portray India’s 72nd Independence Day being celebrated in London’s Trafalgar Square with fighter jets making tricolor in the air using colored smoke.
The message with the video reads:
“Request everyone to watch this 1 minute video without miss.
This is an amazing forward from Trafalgar Square, London during the celebration of 72nd India’s Independence Day. Jai Hind _/\_”
Request everyone to watch this 1 minute video without miss.
This is an amazing forward from Trafalgar square, London during the celebration of 72nd India’s Independence Day.Jai Hind 🙏 pic.twitter.com/Eaxb0abNQZ— N Shekar 🇮🇳 (@n_shekar) January 27, 2019
TRUTH
An obvious giveaway to the message was the Italian national flag fluttering in the backdrop. A frame by frame search situates the building to be in Rome, Italy – the Piazza Venezia, popularly known as the Italian Parliament.
A further detailed probe revealed that there is a celebration of the Italian Republic Day on the 2nd of June every year that features the Italy’s Frecce Tricolori – the largest aerobatics display team in the world. The celebration of 2018’s Republic Day was reported by The Telegraph in the United Kingdom and Euro News, a European pay television network. The extravagance is captured from a slightly different angle than the viral video. It played the same music as was heard in the video.
The earliest traceable source of the viral video is one uploaded on Facebook by Satya Balaram Gadagamma on 17th August 2018.
However, it is not completely a manufactured lie. On the 15th of August, 2018, India’s 72nd Independence Day was celebrated in London but it was a very different kind of celebration. The Indian men’s cricket team hoisted the Indian national flag, coincidentally also a tricolor, but not the one featured in the viral video. According to News 18, Captain Virat Kohli alongside his teammates and coach Ravi Shastri hoisted the flag in outside their London hotel before leaving for Nottingham.
Patriotism hormone make us see such things many times. Many such has been debunked by SMHoaxSlayer in last few years –
More fakes:
Request everyone to watch this 1 minute video without miss.
This is an amazing forward from Trafalgar square, London during the celebration of 72nd India’s Independence Day.Jai Hind 🙏 pic.twitter.com/Eaxb0abNQZ— N Shekar 🇮🇳 (@n_shekar) January 27, 2019
