This video of Narendra Modi has been edited to include additional audio

This article is more than one year old.
Published on June 1, 2020 at 04:00
2 min read
By AFP India

A video of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi boarding a helicopter to survey damage from a cyclone in West Bengal, a state in east India, has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter. The video purports to show people voicing anti-Modi chants alongside a claim that it is evidence he received a bad reception from onlookers. The claim is false; the video has been manipulated to include the anti-Modi chants.

The 50-second video, which shows Modi walking alongside West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee, was shared on Facebook here on May 22, 2020. The video has since been viewed more than 397,000 times.

Screenshot of misleading Facebook post

Audio of people chanting “chowkidar chor hai”, which translates as "the watchman is a thief", can be heard throughout the video. The protest slogan was coined ahead of general elections 2019 by Rahul Gandhi, the former president of India’s main opposition Indian National Congress (INC) party, in response to Modi portraying himself as India’s watchman.

The video is also shared alongside a similar claim on Facebook here, here, here and here; and on Twitter here and here.

The claim is false.

A reverse Google image search using video keyframes extracted with InVID-WeVerify, a digital verification tool, found the video was doctored to include the protest audio.

The original footage was published here on May 22, 2020, on the Facebook page of the government-run regional news unit of All India Radio, Kolkata.</a></p> <p>The video includes audio of people shouting religious slogans and “didi”, which means sister and is a term of endearment for Chief Minister Banerjee. No anti-Modi slogans can be heard. </p> <p>AFP reported on Modi’s visit to <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/West+Bengal/@24.3562949,85.6064308,7z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x39fa16ff1397e887:0x71543a3dc3e7a20a!8m2!3d22.9867569!4d87.8549755" target="_blank">West Bengal </a>on May 22, 2020<a href="https://www.afp.com/en/news/826/south-asia-cyclone-death-toll-passes-100-doc-1s24bp1" target="_blank"> here</a>.</p> <p>A further search found that the audio used in the misleading video shared on social media was taken from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bnljP8W2cU&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">this</a> YouTube video published in April 2019 by The Times of India, a major Indian daily newspaper. The footage shows INC supporters protesting against Modi, chanting “chowkidar chor hai” at a public rally.</p> <div class="wrapper-image"> <div class="field field--name-field-media-image field--type-image field--label-visually_hidden"> <div class="field__label visually-hidden">Image</div> <div class="field__item"> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/image_in_article/public/medias/factchecking/india/factcheck_banner11_2.png?itok=kDp-JvIf" width="722" height="158" class="img-fluid image-style-image-in-article" /> </div> </div> </div> <p> </p> </body></html>

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