Fact Check: BJP Shared Doctored Video to Paint AMU Students as Anti-Hindu

An edited version of a video of students chanting slogans against Hindutva, Savarkar and casteism was pushed by right-wing accounts in which the anti-Hindutva slogan is made to sound as if it is against “Hindus”.

Aligarh Muslim University students protest at the gate of the university campus. Credit: PTI

A video of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) students protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act is being circulated on social media with a claim that they raised slogans against Hindus. BJP Yuva Morcha vice president Santosh Ranjan Rai posted the video with the message, “हिंदुओं की कब्र खुदेगी, AMU की छाती पर.यह भारत में सुनने को मिल रहा है भाई  (The grave of Hindus will be dug on the chest of AMU. We are getting to listen this in India -translated)”

Fact-check

With the help of a keyword search on Twitter, Alt News found the same video with better audio and video quality. Listening to the video posted below, it becomes clear that the claim about the students raising anti-Hindu slogans is false. They were actually raising slogans against Hindutva, Savarkar, BJP, Brahminism and casteism.

Here, the students can be heard saying, “हिंदुत्व की कब्र खुदेगी, AMU की छाती पर, सावरकर की कब्र खुदेगी, AMU की छाती पर, ये बीजेपी की कब्र खुदेगी, AMU की छाती पर, ब्राह्मणवाद की कब्र खुदेगी, AMU की छाती पर, ये जातीवाद की कब्र. (grave of Hindutva will be dug on the chest of AMU, grave of Savarkar will be dug on the chest of AMU, this BJP’s grave will be dug on the chest of AMU, Brahminism’s grave will be dug on the chest of AMU, Casteism’s grave will be dug -translated)”. It may be noted that this video was uploaded on December 12, 2019.

Moreover, we matched the above video with the viral version and found that the video has been zoomed-in in the version that is presently viral as compared to the clearer version above. The audio quality of the video has significantly deteriorated in the viral version uploaded and downloaded multiple times on social media in a cyclic pattern.

As can be seen on the image in the right, the entire gate is visible in the background, while it is not in the video which is presently viral, a screenshot of which can be seen on the left.

 

Photo: Screenshots via AltNews

Right-wing users amplify misinformation

BJP UP spokesperson Shalab Mani Tripathi posted the video falsely claiming that the students were chanting slogans against Hindus while adding, “Treatment is necessary for people with such attitude and voice (-translated)”. The tweet has garnered close to 900 retweets so far. BJP member Richa Pandey Mishra tweeted the video with a similar claim.

Former Shiv Sena member Ramesh Solanki also tweeted the same video with the false claim, “हिंदुओं की कब्र खुदेगी, AMU की छाती पर..Yeh aasteen ke ?hamare hi tax pe palte hai aur hamari hi कब्र khodege”. It was retweeted more than 900 times at the time of writing this article.

BJP Delhi spokesperson Tajinder Bagga posted the same clip (left) along with another video that is viral on social media. He asserted that the students raised “a clarion call for ethnic cleansing of Hindus.”


BJP social media head Amit Malviya tweeted the same clip (left) as Bagga’s with the message, “AMU students are chanting ‘हिंदुओ की कब्र खुदेगी, AMU की धरती पर”.


Many other social media users have shared the video on Twitter and Facebook with the identical false claim.

It is evident from the video that the students were raising slogans against Hindutva, not Hindus. BJP office bearers were among many social media users who falsely claimed that the chants were anti-Hindu.

This article was first published on Alt News.