Old cow slaughter clip falsely linked to Indian opposition party's win in Karnataka state
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on June 10, 2023 at 14:52
- 3 min read
- By Anuradha PRASAD, AFP India
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Warning: graphic video
The 29-second clip was uploaded on Twitter here on May 17, 2023, where it has been viewed more than 160 times.
It shows a cow -- considered sacred to India's Hindu majority -- with its throat slit open gasping for life and bleeding while lying on the flag of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
"The #Khan-Grace victory in #Karnataka is celebrated by #slaughtering a #Cow on the #BJP flag. Real Indians? #KarnatakaElectionResults," reads the tweet.
"Khan-Grace" is a hashtag used by BJP supporters to accuse the Congress party of purported bias toward Muslims, many of whom have the surname Khan.
The video was posted days after India's main opposition Congress party defeated the BJP in Karnataka state's legislative assembly elections.
The BJP had mounted a major campaign in Karnataka -- the only southern state controlled by the Hindu nationalist grouping -- with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself visiting to promote its muscular brand of Hindu politics.
The cow slaughter clip has been viewed more than 190 times after it was shared in May 2023 on Facebook with a similar claim in English and in Hindi here and here.
Old video
A keyword search on Twitter found the same video posted here on January 31, 2022 (archived link).
Its caption says the clip was filmed in Manipur state, in northeastern India, and the clip shows men hurling abuse against the state's chief minister N. Biren Singh and another BJP official.
At the time, Singh responded to the tweet by posting a screenshot of a report about the incident published by the Imphal Free Press, an English-language daily in Manipur, on February 1, 2022 (archived links here and here).
"Three persons allegedly involved in the slaughtering of a cow, which video went viral in social media, were arrested by the Lilong police on Monday," the report says in part.
"In the viral video circulated in social media on Sunday evening, a cow was seen slaughtering by some individuals over a BJP flag laid on the ground, as a mark of protest against the announcement of the BJP tickets for the Manipur Assembly polls."
Below is a screenshot of the video in the false post (left) and the genuine video from 2022:
Content warning
In the same Twitter thread, a user tagged the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in India, which responded with a tweet, saying police have arrested the men (archived link).
PETA spokesperson Saloni Sakaria told AFP on May 31, 2023: "We contacted the Lilong Police Station to request them to take necessary action regarding this heinous crime including a request to register an FIR [First Information Report] and arrest the accused.
"The SHO [Station House Officer] of Lilong police station informed us that the prima facie reason of the accused brutally killing the cow was due to discontentment about their leader not being granted a poll ticket by the BJP."
English-language newspapers the Times of India and The Hindu also reported about the incident (archived links here and here).
Local police have not responded to AFP's multiple requests for comment.
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