Author Harinder Sikka, known to have shared false information on several occasions, tweeted a video on November 15. The accompanying caption read, “Must thank Leftists, Tukde-Tukde gangs #Congress supporters, JNU separatists for pushing us to the wall. Indians have taken a stand against traitors. JNU shows the way with a simple slogan: “Neem leaf is bitter, Pakistan is b@#$%! Whoever supports Afzal Khan, send them to Pakistan!” (archive link)

Akash RSS tweeted the video on November 16, attributing it to a saffron wave at JNU. His accompanying caption quoted the same slogan heard in the clip (archive link). Akash has also shared misinformation in the past.

A third user with the display name Prem Sagar Pandey BJP Mirzapur also made this claim while sharing the video.

The clip is getting lots of traction on Facebook as well. It was shared by a page called ‘We Support Hindutva‘, garnering 36,000 views in just six hours.

Fact-check

Alt News performed a reverse search of a keyframe from this video and found a Facebook post from October 2018. However, it did not mention where the clip was taken.

After a few keyword searches, we found this video on Limra Times YouTube channel uploaded on October 4, 2018, which mentions the location as Thane, Maharashtra.

We tried to contact the number shown in the video but it was unavailable. Apart from this, another Facebook page posted it on October 2, 2018, stating that it was taken in Thane. We were unable to get any specific information about the location from Thane police since the video was shot at least two years ago.

The oldest iteration of this video was found on September 25, 2018. It was uploaded by a Twitter user named Shailendra Rai. It is worth noting his tweet also does not specify the location.

But Shailendra had uploaded a higher resolution clip. We noticed that a Samsung store can be seen in the background. Alt News then reached out to a few JNU students who confirmed that there is no Samsung store inside the campus thus the video could not have been shot there.

Therefore, the online claims of a ‘saffron wave’ at JNU are unfounded. The clip is at least two years old and was not shot inside the university campus.

Donate to Alt News!
Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people start contributing towards the same. Please consider donating towards this endeavour to fight fake news and misinformation.

Donate Now

Tagged:
About the Author

She specializes in information verification, examining mis/disinformation, social media monitoring and platform accountability. Her aim is to make the internet a safer place and enable people to become informed social media users. She has been a part of Alt News since 2018.