Video spread with false claim of imams being detained from mosques in India
A video has recently spread on Facebook claiming that imams are being taken from mosques and put in jail in India to prevent them from leading prayers. However, Dismislab’s fact-check found that the video being circulated does not show imams being arrested from a mosque. According to reports from multiple Indian media outlets, the video is about three months old and relates to a different incident in Uttar Pradesh, India.
On June 11, the video was posted on Facebook by a page called “Mahbur Original 0.2.” In the first part of the 30-second video, several elderly men wearing caps and panjabis (traditional attire) can be seen walking forward alongside police. Throughout the video, a man can be heard speaking. He says, “In India, imams are being taken from mosques to jail so they cannot lead prayers. No matter what schemes you devise, it will be of no use. Imams will pray in jail, and the rest of the people will pray outside. No matter how much you go after Muslims, a day will come when the soil of India will tremble with the sound of Muslims’ takbir of Allahu Akbar. Your baseless remarks can never stop the destined victory of these Muslims” (language unaltered). The caption reads, “Imams are being taken to jail in India.”
As of the writing of this report, the video had been viewed more than 2.8 million times and shared over 21,000 times. There were more than 93,000 reactions on the post. Several users, assuming the incident to be true, expressed their reactions in more than a thousand comments. One person wrote, “Our day will come too, Insha’Allah.” Another user wrote, “Just wait for that time.”
To verify the claim, Dismislab took several keyframes from the video and conducted a reverse image search. The verification found a video posted on February 19 this year by a verified Instagram account called “Galli News India.” When translated into Bangla, the video’s caption reads, “Shia-Sunni 1999 Mubarakpur riot case: 12 people sentenced to life imprisonment after 27 years,” and shows the accused being taken to court. The scenes in this video bear resemblance to those in the circulated video.
Upon further verification, Dismislab searched using relevant keywords. The search revealed that multiple Indian media outlets (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) had published reports on the incident. According to a report by the Times of India, the incident took place in Uttar Pradesh, India. It is related to the killing of Ali Akbar, a member of the Shia community, during violence between Shia and Sunni followers in Azamgarh district’s Mubarakpur in 1999. After 27 years of trial, a local court sentenced 12 people to life imprisonment in connection with the incident on February 17 this year. Officials confirmed this on Wednesday, February 18.
In other words, the video is not about the arrest of imams from a mosque in India, but rather footage from when the accused in a 27-year-old murder case related to Shia-Sunni violence in Azamgarh were being taken to court for trial.
All social media captions, quotations, and news excerpts in this article have been translated into English from the languages in which they were originally posted or published.
