Old video, fake tweet viral as Muslims spit on food served to farmers in Muzaffarnagar

A set of two images, an alleged tweet and a video has been shared on social media to promote the claim that Muslims spat on the food served during the recently-concluded farmers’ rally in Muzaffarnagar. Alt News has received several requests on its WhatsApp helpline number (+91 76000 11160) to verify the claim.

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We will look at each of the visuals one by one.

Fact-check

Video

The video shows a man scooping some food on a ladle, taking it close to his mouth and purportedly blowing on it. It has been claimed that he was spitting on the food.

This video has already been debunked by Alt News when it was shared last year with the claim that members of the Muslim community were spreading the coronavirus infection. Our report can be read here.

We had found the video shared by a YouTube channel in 2018. The channel doesn’t exist anymore but an archived link can be accessed here. This itself debunks the claim that the clip has anything to do with the farmers’ rally.

Alt News had contacted an Islamic scholar to know what exactly is happening in the video. The scholar said, “It’s called ‘Fatiha Jalana’. It’s done after the food is cooked. Some Quranic verses are read over the food to either pray to Allah to cure diseases or make a wish to Him. Some blow air and some don’t. It’s Fatiha where you take out some food and ask for Barkat (good fortune).” He further added that we see a lot of people gathering outside mosques with sick children after the prayers are said. Worshippers who step out of the mosque after reading namaz are asked to blow air over these children as it is believed that it has Barkat bestowed by Allah. It may be noted that this is an archaic practice followed by very few people.

This video explains how a person can recite Surah Al-Fatihah: “You can recite certain Ayat, Ayat Al-Kursi or Surat Al-Fatihah or whatever you can read of the Quran on the water then drink it. Make wudu or shower.”

While we cannot independently verify the context of the video, it doesn’t show Muslims spitting on food served during farmers’ protest.

Tweet

A screenshot of a tweet from the handle ‘@aadil_ansari’ has been shared to support the viral claim. The alleged tweet shows ‘Maulana Aadil Ansari’ confessing that Muslims served food contaminated with saliva to Rakesh Tikait, Poonam Pandit and more than 5 lakh non-Muslims. Below is the complete tweet in Hindi:

“माशा अल्लाह कल हम मुसलमानों ने मुजफ्फरनगर रैली मे राकेश टिकैत,पुनम पडित समेत करीब 5लाख+कोफिरो को थूक वाला हलवा व अन्य पकवान खिलाकर अल्लाह हू अकबर का नारा कोफिरो के मूह से बुलंद करवा विश्व रिकॉर्ड बना दिया दिया हुकूमत ऐ हिंद से गुजारिश है इसे लिम्का बुक समेत विश्व रिकॉर्ड घोषित किया जाऐ.”

Maulana Adil Ansari, Masha Allah, yesterday we Muslims made a world record by feeding spit pudding and other dishes to about 5 lakh+ Kofiro including Rakesh Tikait, Punam Pandit, in Muzaffarnagar rally, raising the slogan of Allah Hu Akbar from Kofiro’s mouth, set a world record pic.twitter.com/sn7BIQfk1o

— Indraneel 🇮🇳 (@icbharadwaj) September 12, 2021

The alleged tweet is massively widespread on Facebook.

It takes a few seconds to prove that the tweet is fake. Alt News copy-pasted its text and found that it exceeds the 280 character count limit by six characters.

Some users have also shared a screenshot that shows one ‘Muhammed Dilshad (M_Dilshad)’ replying “we will set a new record in Lucknow”.

@aadil_ansari क्या कह रहे हैं मौलाना साहब। @Uppolice कृपया संज्ञान में लेते हुए pic.twitter.com/MR1xdyfpR6

— सुनीलmehta 🇮🇳 (@mehta24772485) September 12, 2021

Both @aadil_ansari and @M_Dilshad seem to be inactive accounts. We also did not locate tweets by the handles crawled by web.archive.org.

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Photos

Two photos of people serving food have been shared with the WhatsApp forward.

These pictures are indeed from the farmers’ rally in Muzaffarnagar and shows Muslim youth serving food to protesting farmers. They were shared by several social media users.

#मुजफ्फरनगर_किसान_महापंचायत hindu muslim together serving food to farmers #Muzaffarnagar pic.twitter.com/MP5G0VaosR

— Hirday Sidhu (@Hirday49428935) September 5, 2021

The pictures were also used in media reports (1 and 2).

Therefore, pictures of Muslim youth serving food to farmers during Muzaffarnagar ‘Kisan Mahapanchayat’ were shared with an old and unverified video of a sect of Muslims allegedly blowing air on food. These were posted with the false claim that Muslims were serving saliva infested food to protesters. A fake tweet was also manufactured to support the false claim.