Ever since the women at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh area began a 24x7 protest against CAA and NRC, multiple attempts have been made to malign and discredit the movement.
CLAIM
Amid continuing protests, a video of Sharjeel Imam, a former JNU student, has gone viral on social media.
In the video, Imam calls upon people to “agitate and cut off Assam and the Northeast from rest of India.”
A user has shared this video with a claim that reads, “Assam ko katna hamari zimmedari hai. (To cut Assam is our responsibility) Shaheen Bagh protest mastermind openly calling for a movement of 5 Lac Muslims to block Northeast from rest of the country. But media will tell this is a women-led democratic protest. (sic)”
Imam is heard saying, “If we have five lakh people organised, then we can cut off Hindustan and Northeast permanently. Even if not permanently, we can cut for one or two months, put things on the tracks that they take one-two months to remove it. To cut Assam is our responsibility; when Assam and India get cut only then will they listen to us. You know the state of affairs in Assam... (sic)”
The archived version of the video can be accessed here.
The video is being widely circulated on Twitter and Facebook with similar claims.
Even Sambit Patra, who’s the official spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party, tweeted saying, “Friends, see the reality of Shaheen Bagh...”.
Patra also brought the issue up in a press conference in Delhi, which was held on 24 January. He said, “This is a very important press conference on a very important issue... Shaheen Bagh should be called Dishaheen Bagh and Tauheen Bagh... We have evidence to that effect.”
WHAT’S THE REALITY?
The video which is being circulated with an intent to demean the Shaheen Bagh protest, is not from Shaheen Bagh at all. In fact, it is from Aligarh Muslim University.
The video hasn’t been doctored in any way, but the claim that the speech by Imam was made in Shaheen Bagh is highly misleading.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On conducting a reverse image search, we found the same video on YouTube, which was uploaded on 17 January 2019.
It was uploaded by a channel called ‘Youth Neeti’ with the headline, ‘Sharjeel Imam Students Activist JNU | Day 32 AMU PROTEST AGAINST CAA NRC NPR’.
An archive version of the video is available here.
ANI also reported on Saturday, 25 January, that a case has been registered against Imam in Aligarh. "He made anti-national statements at the AMU students’ protest on 16 January,” the Senior Superintendent of Police, Aligarh, reportedly said, adding that the case was registered based on a video of his speech. Additionally, a team of police officers was also being sent to arrest him, he added.
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