Viral video of cow slaughter on BJP flag is from Manipur, 2022, not Karnataka

Trigger Warning: Animal Cruelty

[The story uses only screenshots of the relevant tweets instead of the actual tweets in view of the nature of the viral video in question.]

A video of a slaughtered cow lying on a BJP flag is being shared on social media with the claim that the visuals are from a recent incident in Karnataka where the Congress won a thumping victory in the assembly elections winning 135 seats, twice as many as the BJP.

The video has been shared by several social media users with the caption: “Khan-Grace’s victory in Karnataka is celebrated by slaughtering a cow on top of the BJP flag. Real Indians. 😡😡😡😢”.

Twitter user @ssingapuri, who has a verified account and describes himself as a ‘social media influencer’ in his bio, shared the video with the same caption.

A user called ‘Tathvam-asi‘ shared the same visuals on Twitter on May 16 with the caption, “Barbarians. I got a video saying it’s from Karnataka and Izlamic fanatics cut the cow on the BJP flag to celebrate Khangress victory. 😭😡 Twitter isn’t allowing me to upload the video so posting the pics.” The tweet has received over 1,00,000 views and has been retweeted over 1,500 times. The user’s bio says he is followed on Twitter by BJP leader Kapil Mishra and Union minister Piyush Goyal’s office. (Archive)

The video and the claim that it was from Karnataka were shared on Twitter by users @Sarvesh38453373 and Ashish Tiwari. Many other social media users shared it on Facebook and Twitter claiming the same.

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Fact Check

We ran a keyword search which led us to related news reports from last year that indicate that the incident occurred in Manipur during the 2022 assembly polls.

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As per a Times of India report from February 2, 2022, right after the BJP announced its list of candidates for the 60 seats in the Manipur assembly polls on January 30, 2022, this video clip surfaced on the internet where a few men slaughtered a cow and kept a BJP flag under its head. Some people in the background were also heard shouting abuses against the chief minister of Manipur N Biren Singh and Manipur unit BJP president A Sharda Devi.

Many social media users posted the video last year. While scrolling through those we came across a tweet from a Twitter user ‘Nishant Azad/निशांत आज़ाद’. He shared the video and tagged Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh saying, “#Manipur: Muzlims slaughtered a #cow keeping on #BJP flag. The goons also abused Chief Minister @NBirenSingh and @BJP4Manipur president A Sarda Devi. And this Mohtarma @khanumarfa says that Muslims live in fear in India and there is a feeling of unease and insecurity among them”.

N Biren Singh replied to the above tweet with a screenshot from a news report by Imphal Free Press (IFP) where the headline said: “Three arrested for allegedly slaughtering cow over BJP candidates list”. (Archive)

The IFP report, dated February 1, 2022, can be read here.

According to a report in northeast-based digital media outlet East Mojo, the incident was a result of dissatisfaction over the BJP’s list of candidates for the assembly elections, which had been announced on the same day that the video went viral in 2022.

We also noted that Twitter user ‘Tathvam-asi’ who had initially shared the visuals from the video with the claim that the incident recently happened in Karnataka on May 16, later clarified that the video was old and from the northeast. Now the tweet has been deleted by the user.

To sum up, the video of a cow slaughter on a BJP flag is old and from Manipur, not from Karnataka. The claim that the incident occurred in the southern state after the Congress won the assembly polls is false.