A video showing a spectacular display of fireworks and plumes of colourful smoke near a building is being widely shared on social media. It is being said that this was how Holi was celebrated at Atal Tunnel in Himachal Pradesh. Vishwa Hindu Parishad spokesperson Vindo Bansal shared the video and wrote, “Unique and beautiful video of holi”. It gained close to 10,000 views. Maya Suresh Chavhanke, director of Sudarshan News, shared Bansal’s video.
Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the video is from King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture in Saudi Arabia. The video has been on the Internet since 2018 and has absolutely no connection with Holi. Abdullah bin Khalid bin Sultan, Saudi Ambassador to the United Nations had tweeted the same video in 2018. He wrote that the video was shot at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, Dhahran. On October 28, 2018, Prince Abdullah visited a research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at King’s College, London.
He had captioned the video as, “Beautiful daytime fireworks show @Ithra in Dhahran”. In the next tweet, he added: This was during Creativity Season “Tanween”, the largest creativity event in the region 17 days event.
The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, also known as Ithra, incorporates museums, library and theatre and exhibition halls. It is situated in Saudi Arabia’s Dhahran city.
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 daytime fireworks at 4pm. The Facebook page of Ithra had also posted some visuals on October 17, 2018.
Though not completely sure, but it is most likely that the viral video is of fireworks displayed at Ithra in Saudi Arabia on the occasion of a creativity event called “Tanween”.
The screen grab of the viral video with a picture of King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture is taken from Google maps. Comparing the two, one can easily spot similarities between them.
Atal Tunnel, on the contrary, looks completely different. The world’s largest tunnel was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 3 last year. It is located in Rohtang, Himachal Pradesh.
Last year, the tourism ministry had posted a video of the tunnel on Twitter.
Thus, it is clear that the video is from King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture. It does not have any connection with Holi.
