In the original video, a crowd at Congress minister Navjot Singh Sidhu’s rally can be heard screaming ‘Pakistan Murdabad’, not ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ as claimed by Zee News.
New Delhi: A doctored video of a crowd shouting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ (long live Pakistan) at a Congress election rally in Rajasthan’s Alwar district has been widely shared on social media.
In the original video, the crowd can be heard screaming ‘Pakistan Murdabad’ (down with Pakistan), instead of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’, at the rally that was addressed by Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu Saturday.
The cricketer-turned-politician was recently embroiled in a controversy over his visit to Pakistan.
The doctored video was initially posted from the official Twitter handle of Zee News Sunday. It was deleted Monday, but not before it fetched 239 retweets.
The original video is from Sidhu’s rally in Alwar in which he mimicked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s way of addressing his audience as Bhaiyo, behnon as well mitron.
Zee News had tweeted the doctored video, saying, “WATCH- Shocking! Pak supporters shout “Pakistan Zindabad” slogan in Navjot Singh Sidhu rally”.
By the time the fake post was deleted, it was shared by many ‘nationalist’ Twitter handles. Some Indian and Pakistani media, including Republic TV, Dunya News and Times of Islamabad, ran stories with the same claim.
Not the first time
In their shows, Zee News anchors claimed that members of ‘Tukde Tukde gang’ — a term made popular by a section of news channels during the 2016 JNU controversy — were shouting ‘Pakistan zindabad’ at Sidhu’s rally in Alwar.
At that time too, Zee along with a few other news portals had drawn criticism for running their shows based on doctored footage.
Also read: Congress leader Randeep Surjewala uses part of a video to target CM Vasundhara Raje
Congress trims the video
Throwing their weight behind party colleague Sidhu, Congress supporters have posted a trimmed version of video.
Congress party’s communications in-charge, Randeep Singh Surjewala claimed that the news portals were spreading misinformation. The video posted by him on Twitter, however, omits the ‘sloganeering’ part.
Bhakt Channels have taken over prime positions in the Dirty Tricks Department of the BJP.
First ’Fake News Factory’ of @republic & @timesnow spread Falsehood,now @ZeeNews has tweeted an absolutely doctored video of @sherryontopp!
Sharing with you Original Video-
Sat Sri Akal! pic.twitter.com/f8BLNNHrZv— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) December 3, 2018
Congress supporters Rachit Seth and Gaurav Pandhi retweeted the same video that Surjewala had shared.
Shame on @ZeeNews for showing doctored video of @sherryontopp Navjot Singh Sidhu’s rally. They cleverly inserted an audio of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ into his Alwar rally vid, while on the original vid there is no such thing and you can clearly hear people chanting “Jo Bole So Nihal’ pic.twitter.com/Gq8xagoLYe
— Gaurav Pandhi (@GauravPandhi) December 3, 2018
.@ZeeNews is playing a FAKE Video of @sherryontopp ‘s where they are saying that people were raising pro Pak Slogans.
It is a disgustingly doctored video.
The original Video is here.
Bhakt Channels = Dirty Tricks Department of Modi + Amit Shah ! pic.twitter.com/UPaI0o1Gec
— रचित सेठ (@rachitseth) December 3, 2018
In collaboration with SM Hoaxslayer.