5-yr-old video edited with provocative song shared widely to target Muslims

A video that has gone viral on social media shows people in a crowd moving forward on a road with swords in hand. A song playing on a loudspeaker can be heard in the background of the video. This song has various messages encouraging people to take arms, and bring down the government, and also the slogan ‘Naar-e-Takbeer’.

Vice-president & spokesperson of Iskcon Kolkata Radharamn Das shared this video on Twitter with the caption, “Judges will not give verdict, but Muslims will deliver verdict with swords. We swear to Khuda that our children’s will not hold mobile phones, but will wield swords. While Government want to give computer in their hands, they want swords instead. Hindus keep sleeping”.

“Judges will not give verdict, but Muslims will deliver verdict with swords. We swear to Khuda that our children’s will not hold mobile phones, but will wield swords.”

While Government want to give computer in their hands, they want swords instead. Hindus keep sleeping 😴 pic.twitter.com/dQacFnvDG2

— Radharamn Das राधारमण दास (@RadharamnDas) February 22, 2023

Replying to a user, Das also claimed the video to be a few-days old.

Bihar, few days ago

— Radharamn Das राधारमण दास (@RadharamnDas) February 23, 2023

Suresh Chavhanke of Sudarshan News too shared the clip with a similar caption in Hindi.

न हुकूमत, न अदालत
जो फैसला करेगा, मुसलमान करेगा…

यह #HateSpeech नहीं है! शांति संदेश हैं, जज साहब ?
pic.twitter.com/OQGBjSeNtf

— Suresh Chavhanke “Sudarshan News” (@SureshChavhanke) February 23, 2023

User @MeghUpdates, a Twitter blue subscriber who frequently shares misinformation, tweeted the same video and claimed that ‘Muslims in Bihar have called for violence against Hindus’.

Viral video claimed to be from Bihar where Swords wielding muslims can be seen calling for violence against Hindus in India’s Bihar statepic.twitter.com/ZcoOLMaWd8

— Megh Updates 🚨™ (@MeghUpdates) February 23, 2023

Many Twitter users and journalists such as @ajeetbharti, @IAbhay_Pratap, @Ambuj_IND, @pallavict, and @SaurabhKhare009 shared the same longer version of the clip with different Hindi and English captions.

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Fact Check

Watching the video carefully, we noticed that a text that reads ‘MAH FACTORY’ written at the right-hand corner of the video. With this clue, we performed a keyword search on YouTube which led us to a longer version of the viral video which was uploaded on March 14, 2020, by a YouTube channel named ‘Mah factory’.

Alt News then broke the video into multiple key-frames and reverse searched one of them on Google. We found that it matched a video claimed to be of a Muharram procession in Dehri, Bihar. Upon playing this clip, we noticed that the ‘inflammatory’ song has been added separately in the video.

Furthermore, we tried to find out the song which is added to the viral video. We found that the viral song has been made using three separate dialogues of an individual called Rehan Hashmi. Doing an additional keyword search, found the three videos in which these words have been spoken by Rehan. (1, 2, and 3).

To conclude, an old video, likely of a Moharram procession, where people can be seen carrying swords, was edited to include dialogues to take arms, bring down the government and slogans of ‘Naar-e-Takbeer’. The video is at least five-year old and the song is added separately in the video.