Fact Check: Not 'Separatist' Rally in Karnataka After Congress Win, This is Pakistanis Marching In Support Of Imran Khan
A night-time video from Pakistan, in which a sloganeering group of men took out a march, was virally shared as from Karnataka. Those who shared the video wrongly claimed that it showed an Islamist rally of separatist nature after the Congress returned to power. Read more...
The viral video was being shared as from Karnataka following the announcing of election results.
New Delhi: Following the victory of the Congress party in the Karnataka Assembly Elections, a video has gone viral on the internet. Many users who shared the clip claimed that it showed separatist Islams taking out a rally in Karnataka after the results were out.
"Following Congress triumph, political Islam has begun raising separatist voice yet again. One such rally was held in Karnataka yesterday. The Centre shouldn't delay taking action against these acts," a user who shared the video on Facebook wrote in Malayalam.
Was this video truly shot from Karnataka on Saturday as claimed? Times Now found out the claim was false.
Fact Check
There were no news reports of slogans of separatist nature being chanted by any groups following the Karnataka election results. The language in which the slogans were chanted by the mob was not Kannada.
A close look at the video showed the red and green coloured caps worn by some participants of the rally had the letters "ISF" inscribed on them.
— Muhammad Tahir Meo (کپتان کا ادنا سپاہی) (@Meo03006579757) May 11, 2023
When a screenshot of the capped men was reverse-searched on Google, a tweet in Urdu was retrieved. Posted by one Muhammad Tahir Meo, an English title was also found along with it. "Dear powerful people of Pakistan, you have lost! People have won!" the tweet from May 11 read. It was also accompanied by the hashtags #PakistanUnderFacism
#ReleaseImranKhan, #BehindYouSkipper and #ImranKhanArrest.
This confirmed that this rally didn't take place after the Karnataka election results were declared as the counting of votes took place on May 13 in the southern state.
As Muhammad Tahir Meo's account had many references to Imran Khan, we ran a Google keyword search for "ISF" in Pakistan. This revealed that the student wing of former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is called Insaf Student Federation or the ISF. PTI's official website had a reference to ISF and its colours matched that of the caps worn by the participants in the viral video.
On May 11, Times Now carried a similar screenshot in a report on unrest in Pakistan following Khan's arrest.
Another keyword search showed that India Today was able to spot a better version of the same video on the verified Twitter handle of Pak journalist Anwar Lodhi.
