Video of Hindu woman kneeling at Rath Yatra in Puri viral with false claims that she was offering namaz – Alt News

A video showing a female police volunteer pulling away a woman kneeling underneath a large wooden chariot is viral on social media with communal claims that she was offering namaz or Islamic prayers during the annual Rath Yatra in Puri, Odisha. While the clip does not clearly show namaz being offered, someone in the background can be heard asking, “Namaz porche naki?” (Are they offering the namaz?) 

The Rath Yatra or Chariot festival is a major Hindu festival in which thousands of devotees of the Hindu god Jagannath (believed to be a form of another deity, Krishna) come to Puri. In Hindu mythology, the deity travels in a chariot to visit his aunt along with his siblings and offers blessings to all on the way. The city usually witnesses a massive surge in visitors around this time. A glimpse of this scale is also visible in the viral video.

Social media users claim the video shows two individuals offering namaz under the holy chariot of Jagannath, and this is done to deliberately disrespect the religious sentiments of Hindus and malign the sanctity of the festival.  

On July 2, X user BALA (@erbmjha) shared the footage, calling it blasphemous. They also tagged the Odisha police, demanding her arrest. 

Blasphemy during Rath Yatra!!

Woman caught doing Namaz under the Jagannath Rath in Puri.

Enough of testing the patience of Hindus. Why isn’t she arrested yet @odisha_police ? pic.twitter.com/oBwhP5p15u

— BALA (@erbmjha) July 2, 2025

At the time of writing this, the post had over 164,000 views. Note that Alt News has fact-checked misinformation shared by this user several times. 

The same day, on X, Sagar Kumar (@KumaarSaagar), a journalist at Sudarshan News, a pro-Right outlet, shared the same video, suggesting that offering namaz during a Hindu festival signalled a larger conspiracy at play.

ये एक बहुत बड़ी साज़िश है।

अपना शक्ति प्रदर्शन किया गया है।
हिंदुओं की सबसे बड़ी और पवित्र रथ यात्रा भगवान जगन्नाथ जी के रथ के नीचे “नमाज़” पढ़ी गई। pic.twitter.com/UCgiSJhUXm

— Sagar Kumar “Sudarshan News” (@KumaarSaagar) July 2, 2025

The post had over 573,000 views at the time this was written. 

Another X user, Sameer (@BesuraTaansane), also shared the video with a provocative caption that those who hate Hindus should go to their “promised land”. 

If you hate Hindus so much why don’t you just GTFOH & go to your promised land

Shameless beach was caught offering 🤲 under the Rath at the Jagannath Rath Yatra 🤬🤬🤬pic.twitter.com/3FWer1vLgv

— Sameer (@BesuraTaansane) July 2, 2025

At the time of writing this, the post had over 781,000 views. 

Several other social media users, whom Alt News has previously called out for amplifying misinformation, also shared the video with similar claims. These include MeghUpdates (@MeghUpdates), Squint Neon (@TheSquind), Jitendra Pratap Singh (@jpsin1), Ocean Jain (@ocjain4), and Kalpana Srivastava (@Lawyer_Kalpana). 

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Fact Check

On looking closely, we found that the viral video had a “Khabardar Live” watermark. We then found Khabardar Live’s Facebook page, which identifies itself as a local news and media website based in Odisha. On this page, we found a longer version of the viral video posted on June 28, 2025. The caption, in Odia, reads, “Why did police bring women under Jagannath’s chariot?”

In this video, at the 1:22-minute mark, the woman who was seen being dragged by the police volunteer can be heard protesting, “Yeh kya tareeka hai?” she says (“What kind of behaviour is this?”). To this, a man nearby responds that the idol of the Jagannath deity would soon be carried up the chariot stairs, and for that, people were not allowed to sit under the chariot. The woman then replies, “Lekin humko yahaan par bitha ke gaye the, bhaiyya..” (“But I was asked to sit here”). Pointing at the others still kneeling under the chariot, she says, “Wo bhi toh wahin khade hai” (“They are also standing there”).

This made it clear that the woman was not sitting there defiantly, but there seemed to be some miscommunication regarding her presence there.

Also, usually, during prayers, Muslims cover their head and use a prayer mat, which was not the case here, making us doubt that she was offering namaz. To be sure, we ran this by someone familiar with how Islamic prayers are done, and they too told us that covering the head is a customary requirement for women during namaz, and her sitting posture—with feet crossed—does not align with the posture prescribed for Salah. They added that no janamaz or prayer mat was visible, making it unlikely that she was offering namaz.

Alt News also contacted a senior journalist from Puri who was familiar with the incident. Refuting the communal narrative being circulated, she said that the individuals were kneeling and sitting there just to get a glimpse of Jagannath’s idol. 

To corroborate this, Alt News also reached out to Odisha Police’s officer in charge of temple security, Kaushik Nayak. When asked about the alleged video, Nayak said, “No such instance was reported.”

Alt News also independently identified the woman in the video, but will not be divulging her name to protect her privacy. We managed to reach out to her family and acquaintances, who confirmed that she is, in fact, Hindu and a Jagannath devotee.

These findings, put together, make it clear that the viral video shows a Hindu woman sitting under the chariot during the crowded Rath Yatra festival and not offering namaz as social media users wrongly claimed. 

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