Old mock funeral video viral as Muslims celebrating Amit Shah contracting coronavirus

On August 2, Home Minister Amit Shah informed that he has contracted the coronavirus and has been admitted to the hospital for treatment. Soon after, a 26-second video of members of the Muslim community raising ‘Azadi’ slogans during a mock funeral procession began circulating online. In the video, a man can be heard saying, “Both Modi and Amit Shah are dead. (मर गया भैया, अमित शाह, मोदी दोनों मर गया भैया.)” Social media claims suggest that the procession was taken out to celebrate Shah contracting the viral infection.

इनकी मानसिकता देखिए अमित शाह जी के कोरोना संक्रमित होने पर उनकी शवयात्रा निकाल के खुशी मना रहे है…

कोई बताओ इनको शेर ठीक हो गया है अब कागज तो इनके अब्बाभी दिखाएंगे pic.twitter.com/xJWZVNBa7v

— 𝘼𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙏𝙞𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙞 (@tiwari_ashis101) August 7, 2020

Vinay Choudhary, who identifies himself as a spokesperson of BJP Delhi (Youth) on Twitter, also shared this video claiming, “When Shri @AmitShah Became Covid 19 positive, Shantidoots were organizing funeral.”

#The_lowest_level_of_mentality…

When Shri @AmitShah
Became Covid 19 positive, Shantidoots were organizing funeral.

सब मोह माया है गद्दारो, अंतिम सत्य यही है कि #कागज तो दिखाने ही पड़ेंगे। @narendramodi@JPNadda@ShyamSJaju@siddharthanbjp @BJP4India @BJP4Delhi pic.twitter.com/3QYvUSWp5D

— Vinay Choudhary (विनय चौधरी) (@Vinay8Chaudhary) August 9, 2020

Posting this video on Facebook, a page called ‘Politics Solitics’ wrote, “Look at their mentality. They have taken out a funeral procession celebrating Amit Shah contracting coronavirus” As of this writing, the video drew more than 1 lakh views. This page has been found circulating misinformation on several occasions. Alt News has received verification requests for the video on its official mobile application.

Fact-check

A reverse image search of a frame of the video revealed that a user had uploaded it on YouTube on July 16, 2020. Thus the video cannot represent an event that took place after Amit Shah informed that he is COVID positive. The title of the video is, “Modi has died – Amit Shah has died.. Tik Tok amazing new video. (मोदी मर गया – अमित शाह मर गया.. टिक टॉक अमेजिंग न्यू वीडियो.)

We also found the same video uploaded on Facebook on December 21, 2019, on the page ‘Young India’ captioned as “Amit Shah has died.”

At certain points in the video ‘Kolkata Traffic Police’ can be seen written on roadside barricades. This suggests that the video was shot in December 2019 in Kolkata. Some of the people in the clip have placards in their hands and an Indian national flag. They can also be heard chanting ‘Azadi’ slogans. In December last year, the Citizenship Law was being opposed across the country with people raising slogans against Amit Shah and PM Modi. This video may have been shot during the protests.