A misleading statement caused an old video of a leopard pounce on a man riding a bicycle to become viral. Journalists and forest officials who have shared the footage have claimed that Uttarakhand is where the tragedy happened.
On September 21, sports journalist and verified Twitter user @shekharluthra (Treasurer of @PCITweets) posted the video with the remark, “As obtained by someone… Located on the Dehradun-Rishikesh Highway. (This is the Archived link.) Another verified user, @AjitSinghRathi (Bureau Chief Uttarakhand, @ABPGanga), also shared it. According to the tweet in Hindi, the event happened on the Dehradun-Rishikesh Highway. (This is the Archived link.)
Indian Forest Service officer Susanta Nanda (@susantananda3) also shared the video on September 21 with the same claim. (See Archived link.) The video was also shared on Facebook by the same claim. (See Archived link.)
However, EastMojo found that the viral video is an old one and the incident had taken place near the Kaziranga National Park in Assam.
Fact-check:
Using the InVid tool, we divided the movie into keyframes, and on one of those keyframes, we ran a reverse image search. This directed us to a YouTube link shared on June 15, 2022 by ANI News. The event happened on the NH37 at the Haldibari Animal Corridor in Kaziranga National Park, according to ANI News.
The Kaziranga National Park in Assam was traversed by a national highway when a leopard ambushed a bicycle on it. On January 19, 2022, the tragedy happened at Haldibari Animal Corridor. The Kaziranga National Park Authority deployed CCTV cameras, which filmed the scene. The biker did not, however, get any serious wounds as a result of the attack, according to ANI.