PTI Fact Check: Old video of solar panels being damaged in Maharashtra shared with false claim

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New Delhi, Sep 12 (PTI) A video of some people vandalising solar panels was shared on social media with a false claim that the incident took place in Rajasthan on the advice of a Hindu priest.

The PTI Fact Check Desk found that the claim was false. The video was actually from Chalisgaon in Maharashtra, where workers, angry over unpaid wages, damaged the solar plant's panels.

On Facebook, a user named Afaque Razvi falsely claimed the video to be from Rajasthan.

Additionally, a Turkish media outlet, 'RTE Urdu,' in a post on 'X', claimed, "In India, on the advice of a Hindu priest, people attacked solar panels. The priest said that using solar energy would anger the Sun God." This video garnered hundreds of thousands of views and the number continues to rise.

To uncover the truth behind the viral video, the Fact Check Desk used the InVID tool to extract keyframes from the video and conducted a reverse image search using Google Lens. A report related to this incident was found on a website called 'climatesamurai.com' and it was published on February 15, 2018.

The report states that workers in Chalisgaon, Maharashtra, damaged the solar panels of a 100 MW solar plant due to non-payment of wages.

During the investigation, the desk also found a related video on the 'ClimateSamurai' YouTube channel. This video, uploaded on February 15, 2018, explained that workers in Maharashtra damaged the 100 MW solar plant's panels due to unpaid wages.

PTI Fact Check's investigation clearly showed that the viral video was not from Rajasthan but from Chalisgaon, Maharashtra. The video was old and circulated on social media with a false claim. You can read the full fact-check report by clicking here: https://bit.ly/3B295DP For verification or to check the authenticity of any viral claim, you can contact the PTI Fact Check Desk via WhatsApp at +91-8130503759. PTI PRA NSD NSD

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