New Delhi: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan Friday tweeted a video that he claimed showed atrocities committed by the Uttar Pradesh Police against Muslims in the Indian state.
He had tweeted the clip saying it exposed “Indian police’s pogrom against Muslims in India”. The video was subsequently shared by nearly 3,900 people.
In the same thread, he also posted a few other videos and wrote: “Indian Police attacking Muslims as part of the Modi government’s ethnic cleansing.”
But soon after Khan’s tweet, the UP Police clarified that the first video shared by the Pakistani PM was from May 2013 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The UP Police also pointed out that Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) is written on the vests of the personnel in the video.
RAB is an anti-crime and anti-terrorism unit of the Bangladesh Police. UP Police’s tweet also included the original video link.
Khan later deleted his tweets.
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#Oldhabitsdiehard
Khan’s tweets drew sharp reactions from India’s Ministry of External Affairs, diplomats and other Twitter users, who came down heavily on the PM for peddling lies.
MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted a screenshot of Khan’s deleted video and said “Tweet Fake News. Get Caught. Delete Tweet. Repeat”, with the hashtag #Oldhabitsdiehard.
Tweet Fake News.Get Caught.
Delete Tweet. Repeat#Oldhabitsdiehard pic.twitter.com/MjFtzP0WHW— Anurag Srivastava (@MEAIndia) January 3, 2020
India’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Syed Akbaruddin, similarly called Khan a “repeat offender” and shared a video compilation of fake news propagated by Pakistan. His clip consisted of the Pakistani PM’s deleted tweet and images of a Palestinian woman that were falsely shared as a Kashmiri pellet gun victim by a Pakistan envoy at the UN in 2017.
Akbaruddin also used the hashtag “#Oldhabitsdiehard”.
Repeat Offenders…#Oldhabitsdiehard pic.twitter.com/wmsmuiMOjf
— Syed Akbaruddin (@AkbaruddinIndia) January 3, 2020
Sushant Sareen, senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and an expert on Pakistan, also reacted to Khan’s tweets saying: “There is a reason why @ImranKhanPTI is called Im the Dim”.
There is a reason why @ImranKhanPTI is called Im the Dim… https://t.co/E7gMXkBK7W
— sushant sareen (@sushantsareen) January 3, 2020
Wall Street Journal columnist Sadanand Dhume also took a dig at the Pakistani PM, and tweeted: “Not a good look for the PM of a country to spread fake news. This video is from Bangladesh (I say this as a critic of Uttar Pradesh Police excesses).”
Not a good look for the PM of a country to spread fake news. This video is from Bangladesh. (I say this as a critic of Uttar Pradesh police excesses.) pic.twitter.com/EwVAukYBji
— Sadanand Dhume (@dhume) January 3, 2020
Also read: Image of blood-splattered policemen is not from citizenship law protests, it’s from 2018
In collaboration with SM Hoaxslayer.