New Delhi: Madhu Purnima Kishwar, who has been called out several times in the past for circulating fake news, shared yet another fake video on her twitter handle showing men in skull caps indulging in violence.
Making a veiled reference to last week’s communal riots in the national capital, the women activist gave a caption to the video, “Thanks to camera equipped phones in every second hand and thanks to CCTVs all over the city, we now have means to know the anatomy of riots as they happen.”
Fact check
Fact check by Times of India found that the video shared by Madhu Kishwar is not even from India. It is of Bangladesh’s Gazipur and was taken on 1 December 2018 during a clash between two factions of Islamic movement Tabligh Jamaat. The video was posted on YouTube by a channel called ‘News Network’. The clip shared by Kishwar has been cropped from the same.
Video used under false pretenses
According to The Print, this isn’t the first time that this video has gone viral under false pretenses. It also went viral on WhatsApp in January 2019 and was shared with the caption, “Whoever has problem in selecting Lotus in 2019, should be ready to choose future. You can see India’s future. Small trailer of Islamic terrorism in Bengal is presented. Do forward after watching do people remain informed.”
Kishwar shared false posts in the past as well
And interestingly this isn’t also the first time that Kishwar has shared a false post. In June 2019, she tweeted a photo, which falsely showed journalist Rana Ayyub calling to uphold human rights of child rapists.
In 2018, she tweeted news about the suspension of the police officer who killed militant commander Burhan Wani in Kashmir. She was slammed by the Jammu and Kashmir Police for sharing concocted information.
In February 2020 also, Madhu Kishwar tweeted a video that showed policemen removing the turban of a man during a protest, claiming that the man was a Muslim who had disguised himself as a Sikh to prove that the two communities were together against the Citizenship Amendment Act passed by the Narendra Modi government.
The Print had noted that the video was not from the CAA protests but from 2011 when rural veterinary pharmacists in Mohali, Punjab, were staging a sit-in against the state government demanding regularisation of their jobs.
The agitation had turned violent and the Punjab Police had resorted to lathicharge and at least one Sikh protester’s turban was forcibly removed by a police officer.
Twitter removes the post
The tweet in question seems to have been removed by the Twitter as we are getting the below message on clicking the link shared by The Print.
This Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules
Kishwar is the chair professor in the Indian Council of Social Science Research. She founded women’s journal Manushi in 1979.
Habitual liar?
BOOM in its story ‘Madhu Kishwar’s Never-Ending Tryst With Fake News’ published on 13 June 2019 stated: “There have been several instances in the past, when Madhu Kishwar was found posting content on Twitter that has turned to be outright fake.”
AltNews after sharing a lot of her fake tweets in the article ‘Is it true? A day in Madhu Kishwar’s WhatsApp University’ published on 28th January 2018 wrote: “Madhu Kishwar’s account was briefly suspended in September 2016 for sharing objectionable images but it seems that no lessons were learnt. She continues to be a repeat offender routinely falling for WhatsApp forwards and tweeting them on to her 2 million followers. Everyone had a good laugh over the nano chip and Nagapushpa flower but with the content getting increasingly malicious, it is not funny anymore. Alt News urges Ms Kishwar to pause and think before she forwards yet another WhatsApp rumour from her “trusted” sources. “