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New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh police on February 28 registered a first information report against a journalist and eight others for sharing a video showing overcrowded and unruly Holi celebrations in the state’s Mathura and Vrindavan towns. Police claimed that the video was old but was being presented as recent and that doing so had created an “atmosphere of fear”.

An FIR was lodged at Barsana police station in Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh on February 28, based on a complaint filed by a Gaurav Tomar. The Wire has seen a copy of the FIR.

At 6:22 pm, on February 27, journalist Piyush Rai posted the video on X, captioned, “I am not a fan of crowded places and I try to scare the shit out of others too. That’s my idea of saving lives.”

The video showed overcrowded Holi celebrations allegedly in the famous Braj temples in Mathura-Vrindavan, where people could be seen being pulled and tugged in all directions.

Rai did not claim in the post on X that this was a video of the ongoing Holi........

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