On Friday, Karnataka Pradesh Youth Congress leader Raksha Ramaiah took to Twitter to share a video of a biker crashing onto another rider on a busy street.
Sharing the video, the influential Congress leader claimed that the video pertains to an incident of a youngster knocking down a Muslim guy deliberately for ‘fun’. “Look what the hate has come to now, this youngster knocks down a Muslim guy riding his bike ‘for fun’,” Raksha Ramaiah tweeted.
Look what the hate has come to now, this youngster knocks down a Muslim guy riding his bike ‘for fun’. pic.twitter.com/LpCzDU1JEO
— RR 🇮🇳 (@RakshaRamaiah) April 29, 2022
Sharing the video, Raksha Ramaiah insinuated that the rider deliberately hit the Muslim guy out of hatred for him, subtly targeting the Hindu community.
The video has gone viral on the internet, with more than 8,000 people liking it and over 6,000 people retweeting it. Many social media Twitter users, including far-left accounts, Islamists, and foreign journalists, have shared the video on their timeline, claiming that the rider chased down the Muslim bike to crash him deliberately.
According to them, there is an intense hate brewing against the Muslims in the country, which is now leading to such ‘attacks’ against Muslims in the country. Islamists were the first to share the video aggressively on Twitter, saying that Muslims have become a joke in India.
A youngster knocks down a Muslim guy riding his bike ‘for fun’.
— Shuja (@shuja_2006) April 29, 2022
Muslims became a joke in India. pic.twitter.com/S3nU7SPDwa
Another Muslim social media user Nadeem Khan shared the purported video claiming attacks on Muslims. He peddled propaganda, saying that hate is increasing daily in India.
Hate is increasing day by day in India. One example here.@UNHumanRights @UNOCHA @hrw @BBCHindi @AJEnglish @sakshijoshii https://t.co/cMeY47QQXo
— Nadeem Khan (@khannadim) April 30, 2022
Not just ordinary trolls on social media but influential social media users also shared the video. Rakesh Sharma, a far-left Twitter user, said this incident, allegedly an attack on Muslims, depicted the new India of the dreams. This is what people voted for, he asked, questioning people whether they would continue to support it.
Sharing the purported video, Rakesh Sharma asked whether this is the New India the young children of the country will inherit.
#NewIndia of your dreams?
— Rakesh Sharma (@rakeshfilm) April 30, 2022
That you voted for?
Continue to support?
Or refuse to speak out against?
Is this #NewIndia your true legacy for your children – the country they will inherit?!
👇🏼 https://t.co/qOPzfnNLQU
Assed Baig, the journalist at Al-Jazeera, propagated misinformation saying right-wing Hindu bikers targeted Muslims by crashing onto them in India. He also added that Hindus were filming such acts.
Right-wing Hindus targeting Muslims in India. Film themselves knocking a man off of his motorbike https://t.co/6jZol7PneZ
— AssedBaig (@AssedBaig) May 1, 2022
Harini Calamur, another journalist, also put out a misleading video to claim that something is terribly broken in the country.
something is terribly broken …. https://t.co/nXxkoZHdhZ
— Harini Calamur (@calamur) April 30, 2022
Rupa Gulab, another far-left writer, claimed that this was religious persecution and an attempt to murder.
There are words for this, @DrSJaishankar, and none of them have anything, anything at all, to do with democracy. I would go with religious persecution and attempt to murder. Stop lying to the world, and stop whitewashing crimes against humanity in India. https://t.co/YgTpp05DO1
— Rupa Gulab (@rupagulab) April 30, 2022
Not just Indians, even Pakistanis shared the purported video to claim that the situation of Muslims in India is very bad. A Pakistani user said that the one rider knocked down a Muslim from his bike to hurt him just for fun.
Before you criticize your defenders in Pakistan, don’t forget to look at situation of Muslims in India.
— سہیل | Sohail (@SohailAnwer) April 30, 2022
Here, one knocks down a Muslim from his bike to hurt him just for fun.
Be grateful for your soldiers because this could be our fate if not for them. pic.twitter.com/D5lKCQYpvN
However, the video being shared on social media, thanks to Raksha Ramaiah, claiming that the rider is being crashed by another person only because of his Muslim identity is not true.
Fact check:
In the purported video shared by the congress leader, it is clearly audible that the person who shot the video said that the man who crashed is drunk.
The red-shirt clad rider can be seen acting weirdly on the road after being drunk. He then loses control of his bike and crashes onto the rider who was seen wearing a cap. According to the Marathi dialect spoken in the video, the incident occurred somewhere in Maharashtra.
In addition, the claim that the Muslim guy was attacked is also not true. There is no evidence that the victim was a Muslim. The far-left users, Islamists, declared that the victim was a Muslim because of the fact that he was seen wearing a cap.
However, social media users have pointed out that it is common for Hindus to wear such a white ‘Gandhi cap’ in Maharashtra. So, it is wrong to say that a Muslim man was attacked without confirming the identity of the victim.
It’s this marathi cap in the video. Not a skull cap. 🙄 pic.twitter.com/qIzeV9pWbo
— yogesh (@yoga_esh) April 29, 2022
Moreover, even if the victim turns out to be Muslim, it still does not prove that he was targeted because of his religion without a proper investigation. The video suggests that it was a routine road accident and most probably the bikers didn’t know each other. Only after the man who knocked the other man down is caught and interrogated, the fact can be known.
Hence, the claim made by Congress leaders and assorted trolls on Twitter that a Muslim rider was deliberately knocked by another person for his religion is untrue and misleading.
