Sudarshan News Shares Old Video Morphed With Slogans Calling to Kill RSS Workers

Jul 8, 2019 | PRATIRODH BUREAU

An old video of a Moharram procession was doctored to include the slogans and circulated with the malicious intent.

“पूरे भारत मे मज़हबी उन्मादियों का खौफनाक रूप सड़को पर. नंगी तलवारों के साथ लग रहे नारे- चड्ढा चड्ढी वालों को, गोली मारो सालों को. मौत का इशारा @RSSorg व अन्य हिन्दू संगठनों के कार्यकर्ताओं की तरफ. @HMOIndia @AmitShahOffice @AmitShah @narendramodi @PMOIndia @naqvimukhtar (Horrible scenes of religious fanatics can be seen on the streets of India. People are shouting slogans with naked swords raised – Shoot those who wear shorts. The incitement to kill is aimed at workers of RSS and other Hindu organisations)”

A video shared by Sudarshan News with above claim shows a group of people allegedly shouting slogans that roughly translates to “Allahu Akbar, kill the murderers of Tabrez, RSS murdabad, shoot the half-pant guys, the blood of Tabrez will bring the revolution”.

A video shared by Sudarshan News with above claim was retweeted 2.7K times, before the tweet was deleted.

पूरे भारत मे मज़हबी उन्मादियों का खौफनाक रूप सड़को पर.

नंगी तलवारों के साथ लग रहे नारे-

चड्ढा चड्ढी वालों को,
गोली मारो सालों को.

मौत का इशारा @RSSorg व अन्य हिन्दू संगठनों के कार्यकर्ताओं की तरफ.@HMOIndia@AmitShahOffice @AmitShah @narendramodi @PMOIndia@naqvimukhtar

— Sudarshan News (@SudarshanNewsTV) July 1, 2019

The same video was shared by Twitter user, Dr. Jitendra Nagar (@NagarJitendra) with a similar claim, “भोपाल मे सडको पर डरे हुए शांतिदूत @RSSorg के खिलाफ हाथो मे गंडासे और तलवारें ले के निकले है… इसमे एक अंतराष्ट्रीय षडयंत्र नजर आता है कि किसी भी तरह देश मे भय का वातावरण बने और विश्वमंच पर मोदीजी और भारत को बदनाम किया जा सके। MP मे कोंग्रेस की सरकार है तो साजिश ही हो सकती है (Fearful ‘Shantidoots’ are out on the streets of Bhopal with swords in their hands while opposing RSS…There seems to be an international conspiracy in this according to which they want to create an atmosphere of fear around the country so that Modiji and India get ridiculed interntionally. Since MP has a Congress Government, this can only be a conspiracy)”

भोपाल मे सडको पर डरे हुए शांतिदूत @RSSorg के खिलाफ हाथो मे गंडासे और तलवारें ले के निकले है…
इसमे एक अंतराष्ट्रीय षडयंत्र नजर आता है कि किसी भी तरह देश मे भय का वातावरण बने और विश्वमंच पर मोदीजी और भारत को बदनाम किया जा सके।
MP मे कोंग्रेस की सरकार है तो साजिश ही हो सकती है pic.twitter.com/Txj1Nq2eF0

— कंगना फैन कट्टर हिन्दू ?%F? (@Nationalis_RSS) July 6, 2019

The video was also shared by several facebook pages on June 30th.

What is the truth?

Alt News broke the video into multiple key frames using InVid. On reverse searching the key frames on Google Image search, we found it matched a video that claims to be a Muharram procession from Dehri, Bihar, uploaded on YouTube on Nov 17th, 2017. Unlike the video posted by Sudarshan News, this video has no incendiary slogans with reference to the lynching of Tabrez Ansari. The only audio that can be heard is a loudspeaker announcement saying “dheere dheere badte rahe… Aapse guzarish hai ke dheere dheere badte rahe (Keep moving, you are requested to keep moving slowly)“. The traditional Moharram chants of “Hassan Hussain” can be heard in the background.

To illustrate that an old video is being shown by Sudarshan News as recent, we did side-by-side comparisons of frames taken from the Sudarshan News broadcast and the 2017 video that Alt News found, an example of which can be seen below. In the juxtaposition below, a hand holding a blue coloured mobile can be seen in both the videos. However, the original video has none of the incendiary slogans shown by Sudharshan TV news. Moreover, this is a 2017 video and cannot be representative of any protest regarding the mob-attack on Tabrez Ansari in Jharkhand in June 2019.

An old video of a Moharram procession was doctored to include slogans calling for killing of RSS workers and circulated with the malicious intent to further polarize communities. Sudarshan News and its host Suresh Chavhanke have been in the forefront in circulating communally sensitive misinformation in the past as well (1,2,3 and 4)

This article was first published at Alt News.