A video is being circulated on social media, and it is claimed that it is the video of the funeral of the eight-year old victim of the Kathua rape and murder case. The duration of the video is about one minute, and it is being shared widely on all platforms of the social media. The following video on YouTube has been viewed close to a million times at the time of writing.
The above video has been shared multiple times on Facebook claiming it to be the funeral procession of the Kathua rape victim.
Not only Facebook, but the video is being shared widely on Twitter as well.
This video has also been posted along with a report published by a website www.cinemathagaval.com.
To fact-check this claim, Alt News viewed the video frame by frame. While doing so, we found the billboard of a shop called “Hakimee Hardware Stores” in one of the frames. We found that this store is located in the city of Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, according to Justdial directory.
When we looked up recent funeral processions in Jabalpur, we found that the video being currently circulated as that of the Kathua victim, in reality, is of the funeral of Mufti-e-Azam Maulana Ahmed Qadri of Jabalpur, which took place in February 2018, and was reported by Patrika and Hitavada. Multiple videos of this funeral procession were uploaded to social media in the month of February 2018.
The video that is now circulating as the funeral procession of the Kathua rape victim had also been posted with another fake claim, that it was the funeral of the son of the Imam of Asansol who was killed in rioting during Ram Navami in March 2018.
Earlier, Alt News reported that a video of a young girl reciting a poem was presented as the last video of the Kathua rape victim. Now, this unrelated video has been circulated to show how thousands of people turned up for the funeral of the Kathua rape victim. Notwithstanding the collective outrage and anguish over the horrific crime of Kathua, certain elements on social media have been using this public anger for emotional manipulation.
(This piece was originally published on Alt News. Read the original piece here.)
(The Quint is now on WhatsApp. To receive handpicked stories on topics you care about, subscribe to our WhatsApp services. Just go to TheQuint.com/WhatsApp and hit Send. )
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)