The video does not show Meitei protesters “removing the Indian flag” outside a local government office.

The false claim came to light when hostilities broke out again in September between the Hindu majority Meitei and the predominantly Christian Kuki community in the state, after months of relative calm, leaving at least 11 people dead (Archived link).

Local police said in a statement on September 9 that a crowd threw stones and plastic bottles at officers at a student-led protest in the state capital Imphal, while demonstrators in another district snatched weapons from police and shot at them .

The video was shared on X and Facebook with similar claims.

However, a longer version of the video sent to AFP by a representative of the student protesters shows that the men in the clip were actually replacing a worn flag of the Meitei ethnic group – known as Salai Taret – with a new one.

Meitei flag

Bruce Pebam, general secretary of the All Manipur Students' Union, said the protesters did not remove any Indian national flag from the government's deputy commissioner's office.

He also provided AFP with a clearer video of the same incident, showing that the flag removed was not the Indian tricolor.

Below is a comparison between the flag seen in the video provided by Pebam (left) and an image of the Indian flag from the AFP archive (right).

Indian media also quoted a local police official who denied the claim: It said that the student protesters tried to replace an old Salai Taret flag at the gate of the deputy commissioner's office in Thoubal district of Manipur.

“It was an old Salai Taret flag that was taken down by protesting students and replaced with a new one. That flag has now been removed,” Thoubal government deputy commissioner A. Subhash Singh told local channel EastMojo. “Normally we don’t fly a flag at the main gate. The tricolor will be hoisted at the main office complex.” (archived link)