Activist for hire, Shehla Rashid, who had recently shunned being a freelance protestor and took the plunge in the politics by joining the political party floated by controversial former Indian bureaucrat Shah Faesal today retweeted an old video from Surat which was being passed off as a recent one to cast the BJP government in a bad light.
The post uploaded by a Twitter user alleged that a massive bike rally is being organised by the BJP today in Hisar Bazar area of Surat as a part of their election campaign. In the video, it can be seen that the people surrounding the bikers were visibly angry at them and tried to manhandle the bikers. The Twitter user who uploaded the video also insinuates that none of the mainstream media outlets has picked this up because it is seemingly against the BJP. Shehla Rashid retweeted the Tweet, thereby lending legitimacy to the claims made by the Twitter user.
However, the claims made by the Twitter user are entirely unfounded and baseless. The fact that no media covered it is because there was no bike rally by the BJP supporters in Surat today and the video uploaded is an old video from December 2017. In a smear campaign against the BJP, an old video from December 2017 was passed off as a recent one by people hostile to the BJP government. Shehla Rashid, who was tagged by the notorious Twitter user in his post, promptly obliged him by retweeting the tweet and being a party to the proliferation of fake news on Social Media platforms.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5OR8zfSOYs]
This is not the first time that Shehla Rashid has been caught red-handed purveying fake news and rumours on Social Media platforms. An FIR was filed against Shehla Rashid recently for spreading rumours after the Pulwama attack. Before that, a complaint was filed against Shehla Rashid for posting a tweet accusing Nitin Gadkari of plotting to assassinate PM Modi. When Gadkari threatened her of legal action, she claimed the tweet was merely sarcasm and played the ‘Islamophobia’ card to get herself out of trouble.
