Video of Muslim boy praying in street falsely linked to Indian opposition party's electoral win
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on June 20, 2023 at 09:26
- 4 min read
- By Uzair RIZVI, AFP India
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"This sight is from Karnataka this morning, secular Hindus should see this. See the impact of your vote, entire road traffic has been changed due to a Muslim boy praying in the road," says the Hindi-language caption to a video shared on Twitter on May 24, 2023. "These Muslims run the constitution according to their own will, let them grow their population by at least 40% in this country and then witness what they will do."
The claim surfaced after India's opposition Congress party won power in the southern state of Karnataka, defeating Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist BJP, AFP reported on May 13 (archived link).
Posts with a similar claim were also posted on Twitter here and here and on Facebook.
India has about 1.4 billion people, including around 210 million Muslims -- making up about 15 percent of the population (archived link).
The Congress party has often been accused of being more "favourable" towards the Muslim minorities in the country. It expanded a programme in 1959 when it was in power to offer Indian Muslims travelling to Mecca for pilgrimage a subsidy to cover travel expenses, food and lodging. The policy was abolished in 2018 following a Supreme Court decision (archived link).
However, the person that took the original video told AFP he filmed it in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Not filmed in India
A watermark on the video shows it was first uploaded to TikTok by user ajom75uddin. A search for the video on his user page reveals it was uploaded here on January 6, 2023 (archived link). The video was also uploaded to Facebook (archived link).
The user told AFP the video was filmed in Dubai, the largest city in the UAE.
"I recorded this video on January 6 earlier this year after Friday prayers in Dubai," he told AFP on June 15, 2023.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading post (left) and the original video on TikTok (right):
AFP was able to geolocate the street here next to Remraam Mosque in the Al Thammam district of Dubai (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video and the street as seen on the Instant Streetview website, with the same building in the background highlighted by AFP.
At the 7-second mark, a motorbike bearing the logo of food delivery agency Talabat -- an online food ordering company in the Middle East -- is visible in the background (archived link).
The company operates in the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt, according to its website.
As of May 2023, the company did not have a presence in India.
Below is a screenshot comparison of a food delivery worker as seen in the video (left) and on Talabat's official Facebook page (right):
The security guard in the footage has the word "guard" written on his shirt in Arabic, which is not usually seen in India.
The logo on a badge on his left shoulder matches that of Arkan, a security company run by the group Ejadah in Dubai (archived link). According to the company’s website, it also offers traffic management and parking services.
The five-digit registration plates on the cars also match those issued in the UAE (archived link). They also move on the right side of the road, while traffic in India moves on the left.
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