Authors
Vasudha noticed the growing problem of mis/disinformation online after studying New Media at ACJ in Chennai and became interested in separating facts from fiction. She is interested in learning how global issues affect individuals on a micro level. Before joining Newschecker’s English team, she was working with Latestly.
Following the communal clashes in Rajasthan’s Karauli last week, several visuals have found their way to social media claiming to show the violence that erupted in the city. One such video showing a group of men waving saffron flags near a building which appears to be a Mosque, is being shared in context to the Karauli violence. Newschecker found the video to be old and unrelated to the events of the past week.
The video is being shared on social media with the caption, “Where are the so-called champions of Human Rights when houses of Muslims are being burned in India.”
Links to such tweets can be found here, here, here and here.
On April 2, a rally was organised in Karauli by right wing groups including the Vishva Hindu Parishad, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bajrang Dal to mark Nav Samvatsar or the Hindu new year. Stones were pelted at the bike rally while it was was passing through a Muslim dominated area in the city.following which, a clash erupted between the members of the Hindu and the Muslim communities. A curfew was imposed in the city after the violence, which has been extended till April 10 as a precautionary measure.
While the ruling Congress party has called the incident an attempt to polarise people, the BJP termed it “a planned conspiracy”. “Congress government’s appeasement policy is responsible for it. No arrest has been made so far. It was a planned attack on the bike rally which was organised on Hindu new year,” BJP state president Satish Poonia said.
Also Read: Video Of Youth Climbing Mosque & Waving Saffron Flag Is Not From Karauli Violence
Fact Check/Verification
Newschecker conducted Google reverse image search by using the keyframes of the viral video and found a report by a website called Vartha Bharati, dated March 29, 2022 , titled ‘Karnataka: Rally organised by BJP MP Tejasvi Surya creates nuisance in front of Mosque, Dargah.’
The report carried a still from the viral video as the featured image. The image was credited to one Twitter user ‘@Shaad_Bajpe’.
According to the report, “BJP MP Tejasvi Surya who had organised a cycle rally from Bengaluru to Kolar on March 27 is once again in the headlines after a video has surfaced on social media wherein the participants of the rally can be seen creating nuisance in front of a mosque and a dargah on their way to Kolar.”
We scrolled through the Twitter feed of user ‘@Shaad_Bajpe’, who is identified as a journalist, and found that the viral video was tweeted by him on March 29 with the caption, “Tejasvi Surya had organised a cycle rally from Bangalore to Kolar on March 21. When the rally reached the Hussaini Makan Masjid of Kolar the people who participated in the rally stopped and started doing this nuisance.” He has corrected the date of the rally to March 27 instead of March 21 in the next tweet.
Newschecker also found that the same video was uploaded on a Facebook page of ‘Hyderabad News Sab se Tezz’ on March 29, 2022.
We further analysed the video closely and spotted ‘MASJID E HUSSAINI MAKAN’ written on the building.
We compared the image of Masjid E Hussain Makan with the building in the viral video and found them to be the same.
We further looked up keywords ‘Tejasvi Surya cycle rally Bangalore to Kolar’ on Google and found a report by Times of India, dated March 27, 2022, which stated that, “Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya on Sunday cycled from Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru to Kolar for 75 kilometres ‘Cycle 2 Freedom Ride’, to commemorate the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’”
According to a report by India Ahead, “visuals of a cycle rally reportedly organised by BJP MP Tejasvi Surya from Bengaluru to Kolar have caught the eyeballs. This was after participants donning saffron scarves started dancing at the gates of Masjids and Dargahs in Kolar to songs saying ‘Jai Shree Ram.”
Conclusion
The viral video of a group of men waving saffron flags in front of a mosque is not from Karauli. The visuals are in fact from a BJP rally in Karnataka on March 27.
Result: False Context/False
Sources
Twitter Account Of User @Shaad_Bajpe
Self Analysis
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Authors
Vasudha noticed the growing problem of mis/disinformation online after studying New Media at ACJ in Chennai and became interested in separating facts from fiction. She is interested in learning how global issues affect individuals on a micro level. Before joining Newschecker’s English team, she was working with Latestly.
