Fact Check- This old video is from the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture in Saudi Arabia. It has no connection with Holi.

During the festival of Holi, a video is going viral on social media which shows a spectacular display of colourful smoke near a building. Social media users claim that the video shows how Holi was celebrated at the Atal Tunnel in Himachal Pradesh.

A Facebook user shared the video with the caption, “HAPPY HAPPY HOLI. ATAL TUNNEL, ROHTANG, HIMACHAL PRADESH.”

Facebook Post | Archive Link 

Fact Check- 

We started our investigation by using InVid-We Verify tool to break the video into small key frames and ran a reverse image search. The results led us to a YouTube video which had been shared last year with the caption, “Colorful Fireworks at The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture khobar”. Since the video was uploaded on June 2020 it was very clear that the video is not from the recent holi celebrations in 2021.

Next, we ran a keyword search and found that Prince Abdullah bin Khalid al Saud of Riyadh had shared part of the viral clipping on Twitter on October 28, 2018. Prince Abdullah is a visiting research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at King’s College, London.

He tweeted a similar video stating that, “Beautiful daytime fireworks show @Ithra in Dhahran”. Further commenting below this tweet he wrote “This was during Creativity Season “Tanween”, the largest creativity event in the region 17 days event.”

Archive Link 

Next, we ran a keyword search to know where Ithra is. We found that the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture is also known as Ithra, which incorporates museums, library and theatre and exhibition halls. It is situated in Saudi Arabia’s Dhahran city.

Next we compared a screen grab of the viral video with a picture of the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture taken from Google maps. We can spot the similarities which makes it very clear that the video is not from India but from Dhahran city situated in Saudi Arabia.

We found that Ithra had organised “Tanween”, a 17-day gathering of the brightest and most creative minds of the country, as per an October 20, 2018, report by “Arab News” .This report has a mention of the daytime fireworks at 4pm. 

Conclusion- Fact Crescendo found that the viral post on social media is False. The viral video is from India. The video dates back to 2018 and is from the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture in Saudi Arabia. It has no connection with recent Holi celebrations in India.