New Delhi: A video of a bomb blast during a funeral procession is being widely shared on social media, with claims that it is from a protest taken out by Muslims for a “suicide bomber” shot dead by Israeli forces.
On Friday, a Twitter user named Shyamal Ganguly — who defines himself as a “staunch Hindu nationalist” — posted the video on Twitter, which now has over 55,000 views and more than 3,000 retweets.
“A Suicide bomber was shot dead by Israeli Forces, Muslims took up his body and Started Protesting for the ‘innocent muslim’. But they did not know that a Suicide Belt was Still Tied to the Bomber’s body they were carrying. What Happend Next is the Video (sic),” read Ganguly’s post.
https://twitter.com/ShyamalGanguly1/status/1139526199124869120
Journalist Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, who was jailed for over a month last year for his “derogatory remarks” about Odisha’s Konark temple, also shared Ganguly’s post.
— Abhijit Iyer-Mitra (@Iyervval) June 15, 2019
However, the video is not from a protest at all, or from Israel. It’s from a funeral procession in Syria.
Syrian origins
In 2012, The New York Times reported that the video is of a funeral procession. The funeral was of an activist named Abdul Hadi al-Halabi who was killed by a Syrian government sniper. During the funeral procession, a car bomb exploded, killing at least 20 people.
Abdul Hadi al-Halabi was killed on 30 June 2012 in Zamalka, near the Syrian capital Damascus. Referred to as a ‘martyr’, his death was mourned by many, as can be seen from the graphic video.
Not the first time
Last year, the same video was circulated with the claims that it was from a funeral procession of a suicide bomber in Kashmir.
At the time, the video was shared widely on social media platforms Twitter and Facebook, and went viral on WhatsApp as well.
In collaboration with SM Hoaxslayer.
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