Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut shared a parody video which shows Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker as real. In the viral clip, Al Baker is seen reacting to the video made by a Twitter user named 'Vashudev' who had called for a boycott of Qatar Airways. Sharing the video, Ranaut called the CEO out for "bullying a poor man".
The video is being shared in the backdrop of remarks by Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) former spokesperson Nupur Sharma about Prophet Mohammed on a primetime TV news debate, and a tweet by the former media head of the party's Delhi unit, Naveen Jindal, on the Prophet, which he later deleted.
Host of countries, including Qatar, have condemned the remarks and called on Indian envoys to register their protest.
Meanwhile, in India, some social media users came out in support of Sharma and Jindal and made the hashtag "#BoycottQatarAirlines" trend on Twitter.
One such video was posted by Vashudev on 6 June, which had 1.3 million views at the time of writing this article. He called for a "tit-for-tat" reaction to Qatar's condemnation, and claimed, Qatar had "started to lay off Indian workers".
However, the viral video featuring Al Baker is a spoof, where a voice-over has been added on the CEO's words from an earlier interview. In the original video from 2017, during an interview with Al-Jazeera, the CEO had spoken about the airspace ban by some of its neighbouring countries when they accused Qatar of supporting "terrorism".
CLAIM
The video is being shared by a user named Ahad, along with the claim that reads, "The CEO of Qatar airways now gives an interview to Aljazeera on the call for #BycottQatarAirwaysQatar by Vashudev Watch till the end! (sic)"
In the video, the Qatar Airways CEO can be heard saying that with “fears of dark days ahead”, he had rushed to Qatar, as the airlines' "biggest shareholder Vashudev had decided to boycott the airline."
Further, he says that the boycott is a "special kind" as it is "bycott".
"Vashudev is our biggest shareholder with a total investment of 634 rupees and 50 paise. And we don't know how to operate anymore and we have grounded all the flights... we are requesting Vashudev to take this call for boycott back," Akbar Al Baker can be heard saying in the video.
An archive of the tweet can be seen here.
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
The video was also shared by Ranaut on her Instagram story calling the CEO out for "bullying a poor man".
(Swipe right for the next slide)
The video was shared by Kangana Ranaut on her Instagram story.
(Source: Instagram/Screenshot)
Several other social media users have shared the viral video.
WHAT WE FOUND
We looked with keywords on YouTube and came across the original video published on the official YouTube account of Al Jazeera on 13 June 2017.
In the interview with journalist Andrew Simmons, Al Baker was asked about the financials of the airways, to which, the CEO said that airlines had made "record profit, in the history of the airline."
Further in the interview, the journalist asked him how felt about the airline being banned from the airspace of the four countries accusing Qatar of supporting "terrorism".
Al Baker had replied saying that this was the "last thing any CEO of an airline would want to hear, that the airspace in which it operates, international airspace, in which it operates has illegally been blocked."
"It was very difficult for me to find a way to come here quickly, but I did because, this is a call of duty, for me to be in my country at such a time, where countries around our region has ganged up against my nation, and made land, sea, and air blockade, which is unprecedented in the history of any country a time of peace, that such a blockade is conducted."Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker
The viral part can be heard from 0:47 seconds-3:46 minutes.
Clearly, a spoof video is being shared on social media falsely claiming that the CEO of Qatar Airways had reacted to the comments made by the Twitter user.
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