Clip shows man waving religious flag after Indian opposition victory, not 'Pakistani national flag'

"The Congress government in Karnataka did not even take the oath and Pakistan national flags are already seen," says the Hindi-language caption to a video shared on Twitter on May 14, 2023.

India's opposition Congress party won power in the southern state of Karnataka defeating Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, AFP reported on May 13.

Karnataka had been the only southern state controlled by the Hindu nationalist BJP and the party had mounted a major campaign in the state with Modi himself visiting to promote its muscular brand of Hindu politics.

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Screenshot of the false post taken on May 19, 2023.

Identical videos were shared in similar posts on Twitter here and here and on Facebook.

A similar video was also shared on Twitter by a senior BJP official with a caption saying the incident happened in the Karnataka town Bhatkal.

Different flag

However, a closer analysis of the flag raised in the video shows it is not the Pakistan national flag.

The flag in the video is green and has the same star and crescent symbol of Islam but does not have the vertical white stripe close to the hoist unlike Pakistan's flag.

According to this information page about Pakistan's flag, the colour green represents the country's Muslim majority while the white stripe represents religious minorities (archived link).

The crescent symbol in the flag in the video also faces the hoist, unlike the Pakistan flag where it faces the other way.

Below is a comparison of the flag shown in the false Twitter post (left) and a picture of the national flag of Pakistan taken by AFP (right):

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Screenshot comparison of the misleading post flag (left) and Pakistan flag (right)

A search on Google using the keywords "Congress win celebrations in Bhatkal" yielded results of a similar video showing Congress workers raising green flags at Shamshuddin circle in the centre of the town (archived link).

Responding to the posts, Bhatkal division police chief Srikantha K told AFP: "The flag waved by the Muslims was a religious flag, it was not a Pakistani flag or of any other country. This is clearly visible in the video."

Inayat Ullah, a journalist for local media Sahil Online News who was in the town during the event, separately said: "Supporters of the Congress party from all religious backgrounds raised their own religious flags to show harmony.

"Saffron flags were raised by Hindus and green Islamic flags were raised by Muslims at Shamshuddin Circle in the heart of the city."

AFP has previously debunked similar posts claiming the Pakistan national flag had been hoisted on Congress party events here, here and here.

Green colour flags with the star and crescent are commonly hoisted by Muslims in India and neighbouring South Asian countries Pakistan and Bangladesh (archived links here, here and here).

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