A video showing people celebrating the victory of a person called Wajid Khan in the panchayat polls in Madhya Pradesh's Katni district has gone viral online with a false claim that chants of 'Pakistan zindabad' were raised.
The false claim was given publicity not only by social media users but also news channels and right-wing publications like Dainik Bhaskar, Times Now, News Nation, OpIndia Hindi, among others.
However, when we slowed down the video, we found that the crowd was raising slogans of 'Wajid bhai zindabad' and not 'Pakistan zindabad.' We also received more videos of the celebrations from Khan, which showed that the claim was false.
The matter is under investigation with the Forensic Science Laboratory but according to senior police officials, the preliminary investigations show that 'Pakistan zindabad' slogans were not raised.
CLAIM
The video was shared by Hindi news publication Dainik Bhaskar with a headline that read, "मुस्लिम प्रत्याशी की जीत पर गूंजा 'पाकिस्तान जिंदाबाद':कटनी में सरपंच के समर्थकों ने लगाए ‘पाकिस्तान जीत गया’ के नारे; सामने आया|"
[Translation: 'Pakistan Zindabad' echoed after the victory of Muslim candidate: supporters of Sarpanch in Katni raised slogans of 'Pakistan has won'; video viral]
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: Dainik Bhaskar/Screenshot)
The claim was then shared by right-wing propaganda websites OpIndia Hindi and Kreately. The claim was also shared by RSS' mouthpiece Panchjanya.
The video was shared by other Twitter and Facebook users, including the social media coordinator of Panchjanya and a reporter with Sudarshan News.
The claim was also shared by several news organisations such as Times Now, News Nation, Jagran, Amar Ujala, One India, etc.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We slowed down the video to 75 percent of the speed and on listening carefully, we found that the people in the crowd were chanting 'Wajid bhai zindabad' and 'Wajid bhai jeet gaya' (Wajid bhai has won).
We then reached out to Khan and he dismissed the claims. He told us he and his wife were active members of the community and his wife ran for the sarpanch post. He said he didn't want that but she did it because people insisted on it.
He told us that his wife, Rahisha Begum, was a Bharatiya Janata Party member, and only did some door-to-door campaigning but got 700 votes – 500 Hindu and 200 Muslim votes.
He alleged that people didn't like the fact that a Muslim person won and because of that his video was shot and shared as “propaganda” to insult and demean him and his wife. He shared another video with us from a different angle which also showed people raising 'Wajid bhai zindabad' slogans.
The incident took place on 1 July after the results were announced. On 2 July, the Chief Superintendent of Police in Katni Vijay Pratap Singh, told mediapersons that a case had been registered regarding the matter and it was being investigated.
The Quint reached out to Katni's Superintendent of Police Sunil Jain who said that in the preliminary investigation, it didn't look like pro-Pakistan slogans were raised and that the video had been shared with the Forensic Science Lab (FSL) for further verification.
Evidently, a video showing people raising 'Wajid bhai zindabad' slogans was shared by several news organisations to claim that pro-Pakistan slogans were raised in Madhya Pradesh's Katni.
(With inputs from Vishnukant Tiwari.)
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