Old video from South Indian festival exposed as ‘anti-Pakistan slogans’ raised in Madhya Pradesh

“Recently during the Mukkaram procession in Ujjain, Muslims shouted slogans of ‘Long live Pakistan,'” the Hindi publication said. Facebook post who shared the video on October 14, 2024.

“The very next day, Hindus in the city gathered in front of the mosque with saffron flags. They protested saying ‘you who raise pro-Pakistan slogans’ should go to Pakistan.’

“Mukkaram” seems to refer to the Islamic month of Muharram, and Ujjain is the largest city in Madhya Pradesh. Saffron is the sacred color of Hinduism.

A video posted on a Hindu nationalist Facebook group, which has more than 370,000 members, shows a crowd waving saffron flags outside a mosque. They can be heard chanting anti-Pakistan slogans.

Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan are bitter rivals with long-standing political tensions.

AFP found that the video was being shared in similar Facebook posts from Hindu nationalist accounts. It also extended to X.

However, AFP found no reports of Hindus chanting anti-Pakistan slogans during the Muharram 2024 procession in Ujjain.

Hindu festival

A reverse Google image search found a clip previously shared in a YouTube video from March 26, 2018 — years before false reports appeared in social networks (archived link).

The clip can be found from a 12-minute YouTube video titled “Ram Navami Full Crowd in Karnataka, Gulbarga 2018”.

Ram Navami is an annual festival celebrating the birth of the Hindu god Ram.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip shared in the fake videos (left) and the 2018 YouTube video (right):

AFP confirmed the video was shot near the Barga-e-Quadri Chaman Mosque in Kalaburaga, formerly known as Gulbarga, in the southern Indian state of Karnataka (archived link).

The scene in the video (left) corresponds to the Google Street View image of the mosque (right).

In the YouTube video, a bus with the inscription “Karnataka State Reserve Police” can also be seen.

Also, the sound of anti-Pakistan slogans appears to have been edited in the clip shared in fake social media posts.

In the YouTube video, Hindu religious songs can be heard in the background. No anti-Pakistani slogans are heard.

A keyword search on YouTube found a video with the same anti-Pakistan slogans heard in the published video (archived link).

According to a YouTube video dated October 5, 2018, slogans were chanted in Thane, Maharashtra. However, the AFP was unable to independently verify this.