Actor-turned-politician Vijay landed in Kuala Lumpur on December 26, ahead of the grand audio launch of Jana Nayagan—the soundtrack release for what’s widely expected to be his final film before going into politics full-time. The event is billed as Thalapathy Thiruvizha—literally a ‘festival’ celebrating him and the movie.
In the above context, an image is being widely shared in which heavy traffic is seen on the road. The image is shared with a caption suggesting that the traffic is caused by Vijay fans in Malaysia ahead of his song release.
A social media user shared the image with a caption that reads, “Singapore to Malaysia immigration road. Look at the crowd only for ThalapathyVijay #JanaNayaganAudioLaunch Thiruvizhaa”
SouthCheck found that the claim is false. The viral image has been on the internet since 2017 at least.
On a Google reverse image search, we found that the same image was shared by a Substack account on June 5, 2021. The report associated with the image argues about Malaysia’s border problem.
The image was also shared by MS News on July 14, 2020. The image was shared with the article titled, ‘Singapore-Malaysia Border Targeted To Reopen On 10 Aug, Not For Leisure Travel Yet.’
Another report by Johor Now shared the image on May 17, 2017.
The report associated with the image suggests Woodlands and Tuas immigration systems between Singapore and Malaysia have returned to normal operation after earlier delays. Traffic remained busy during peak periods, but clearance processes are functioning smoothly again, easing travel at the land checkpoints.
While we couldn’t independently verify the origin of the image, we can confirm that the image has been on the internet since 2017 and is hence unrelated to Vijay’s event in Malaysia.
