Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
A day after PM’s Punjab visit was abruptly cut short and his Ferozepur rally was cancelled over an alleged security breach, several social media users, on Thursday, shared a video of young men in Sikh turbans, riding motorbikes, shouting ‘Khalistan Zindabad’. Users alleged that the video was from yesterday and showed supporters of Khalistan raising slogans with impunity amidst the PM’s Punjab visit, and blamed the Congress government in the state for taking no action. Newschecker has found that the video was from December and is not from the day of PM’s Punjab visit as is being claimed.
Among the many users who shared the video claiming it to be from the day of PM’s Punjab visit, i.e, January 5, 2022 was twitter handle @narendramodi177, which describes itself as a fan page for the Prime Minister. The post shared by @narendramodi177received over 1000 retweets and over 1,100 likes. An archived version of the tweet can be seen here.
Several other twitter users also shared the same post, claiming that the event took place amidst PM’s Punjab visit.
The Prime Minister, who was travelling to Ferozepur to lay the foundation stones of projects worth over ₹ 42,750 crore, including the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra expressway and a Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research’s satellite centre, was stuck on a flyover for 15-20 minutes due to a blockade by some protesters, an incident the Union Home Ministry described as a “major lapse” in his security.
“Say thanks to your CM that I was able to return to Bathinda airport alive,” Modi was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
The incident has resulted in a verbal spat between the BJP and the Congress government in Punjab.
Fact Check/Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim that the video was from the day of PM’s Punjab visit, Newschecker used the fact checking tool InVid to split the video into key frames, and conducted a reverse image search of the resultant images. We found a tweet by another twitter handle @TheAngryLord dated 27th December 2021, which shows the same video.
The video has over 200 shares and over 500 likes, and is identical to the viral video posted by @narendramodi177. This proves that the video was not from the day of PM’s Punjab visit, but from two weeks before.
On further examining the tweet by @narendramodi177, we observed a comment which also pointed out that the video was from 26th December and that it took place in Sirhind, Fatehgarh Sahib to commemorate the martyrdom of Chhote Sahibzade. The comment also carried a video with the same information transposed on it, in Punjabi.
Newschecker decided to conduct a keyword search of the video in YouTube in Punjabi using the words ‘Kesari March’ and ‘Fatehgarh Sahib’ and ‘Khalistan’, in Punjabi and found the same video posted on December 27 by user Sikh In Canada and Mahakal Singh.
We also found the same video uploaded on Facebook on December 27. The caption of the video said ‘While CM Channi Paid Obeisance At Gurdwara Fatehgarb Sahib – Punjab Youth Took “Kesari March” In Memory of Sahibzadas and raised Khalistan Zindabad Slogans.’ This further confirms that the video being shared is at least two weeks old and was not from amidst Prime Minister’s visit to the state. However, Newschecker could not authenticate if the video was indeed from December 26 or if it was from an earlier instance from a different location.
Conclusion
An old video was shared by a user on social media to claim that youth raised pro-Khalistan slogans amidst PM’s Punjab visit to the Punjab.
Result: Misleading/Partly False
Our Sources
Social media posts
(Edit: The sentence ‘we observed a comment which also pointed out that the video was from 26th December’ has been edited to change the month from November to December. It was November earlier as a result of a typo)
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Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
