On June 23, a YouTube page that goes by the name ‘Kota Waalaa’ shared a video in which a large group of students can be seen and heard chanting Jai Shri Ram in response to another group of students offering Namaz on the institute premises. The YouTube channel claimed the video was from Kota’s Samarth Centre of Allen coaching institute. The video was picked by many on social media, including the infamous fake news paddler Meer Faisal.
Sharing the video, Faisal wrote, “Muslim students were offering Friday prayer in an area designated for them at Allen Institute, and after seeing this, Hindu students started opposing them by chanting “Jai Shri Ram.” This video was posted on Instagram two days ago by allen_se_hu.” OpIndia checked the Instagram handle and could not find the video. It might have been deleted by now after it attracted controversy on social media.
Muslim students were offering Friday prayer in an area designated for them at Allen Institute, and after seeing this, Hindu students started opposing them by chanting "Jai Shri Ram." This video was posted on Instagram two days ago by @Allen_Sae_Hu. #Islamophobia pic.twitter.com/00aOBLD4we
— Meer Faisal (@meerfaisal01) June 26, 2023
In replying to Faisal’s tweet, Kota Police said that the video is three years old as it is from 2020, and no such incident happened recently. When the video came to Kota Police’s notice in 2020, they took appropriate action. The police added that they keep an eye on such incidents.
यह वीडियो 2020 का है अभी ऐसी कोई गतिविधि नहीं हुई है, तत् समय इस पर संबंधित संस्था द्वारा प्रभावी कार्यवाही अम्ल में लाई गई थी,पुलिस ऐसे घटनाक्रमों पर लगातार नजर रखती है। कानून व्यवस्था की स्थिति सामान्य है।
— KotaCity Police (@KotaPolice) June 26, 2023
Since Kota Police clarified it was not a recent incident and appropriate action was taken, some people have deleted the tweet, but the likes of Faisal have different agenda altogether. Faisal noticed Kota Police’s reply and quoted it as an “update”. However, instead of deleting the original propaganda tweet, he decided to let it stay on his profile.
For the comparison of the reach of the original tweet, Kota Police’s reply and his “update”, it has to be noted that by the time we published this report, the original tweet had over 900,000 impressions. It was retweeted by over 2,500 times, gathered 3,800+ likes, and was bookmarked over 200 times.
However, Kota Police’s reply gathered only 96,000+ views, around a hundred retweets and less than 200 likes. Faisal’s update’s reach was even lesser. The propaganda tweet is still spreading like wildfire on social media platforms, while the clarification has less than 10 per cent reach.
Meer Faisal has, however, claimed that the video is recent and that the Kota police is misleading people. He has claimed that the video is from the 23rd of June 2023.
It is also pertinent to note here how hollow the propaganda itself was. Allen Institute is an educational institute and no kind of religious activity ideally should be allowed in such a place where people of all faiths study. If there is such religious activity and one argues that the Muslim students were merely practising their faith, the same can be said about the Hindu students chanting Jai Shree Ram as well. To allege that any of this is bigotry against Muslims is simply the need of Islamists like Faisal to ensure their religious supremacy is asserted everywhere without question. There are several cases Namaz was offered in public places such as roads etc even though there were several mosques in the vicinity. This is done merely to assert religious supremacy over non-believers and not necessarily only to practice their faith, which can be practised in designated religious places as well. This narrative that Faisal was peddling was with the aim to further Muslim victimhood so as to claim that Hindus, who are victims of Islamist bigotry and violence, are the actual aggressors.
Meer Faisal’s history of fake news
This is not the first time Meer Faisal has indulged in spreading fake news. OpIndia has extensively covered his lies over the years. In March 2023, he published a long thread claiming Hindus indulged in violence.There were a total of 24 tweets in the thread, with a total of 30 videos, from which the 21st tweet has been deleted now. This was because the Rajasthan Police, which is usually favoured by the Islamic-Left ecosystem, fact-checked it. He was supposed to have deleted the tweet after he learned that the Rajasthan Police were arresting those people who are spreading fake news in the case. OpIndia busted all the lies in the remaining tweets of the thread which can be checked here.
In June 2022, OpIndia did a profile of Faisal after he tweeted that “All non-Muslims are the same, that is Kaafir” which can be checked here.
On April 4, 2022, Delhi Police booked Faisal and the news portal Article 14 for disseminating false information using the social media platform Twitter. The false information was shared regarding The Hindu Mahapanchayat event organised by the Save India Foundation at the Burari ground in Delhi on April 3. He had claimed that five Muslim journalists, including him, were ‘assaulted’ at an event by a “Hindu” mob. News portal Article 14 had also tweeted, “5 journalists, 4 of them Muslim,1 on assignment for @Article14live, have been taken by police to the Mukherji Nagar police station in Delhi after a mob at #Hindu#dharamsansad (for which the police had declined permission) discovered their religion, attacked them & deleted videos”.
On June 3 he claimed that it was a “Hindu mob” that pelted stones when poor Muslims were merely shutting shops to protest against “blasphemous” statements by Nupur Sharma. To put things into perspective, a report has revealed that after Friday prayers, the Muslim mob began forcing Hindus in the Beconganj district to close their shops. When they objected, the enraged mob began throwing stones at Hindus. The Islamists insisted on knowing the names of the people, and those who were Hindus were attacked.
On April 10, 2022, he claimed that Hindus target Muslims during Hindu festivals and such festivals had become a ‘nightmare’ for Muslims. He said, “Hindu festival have become a nightmare for the Muslims of India. Hindus can’t even celebrate their festivals without targeting Muslims. Laanat hai!”
In December 2021, Faisal took to Twitter to post a host of videos about a Bajrang Dal rally in Mewat to fearmongers about Hindu outfits trying to create a “communal divide” between Hindus and Muslims of the area.
Meer Faisal stated in his Twitter thread that on the 12th of December, Bajrang Dal member Jeet Vashisht took to Facebook to post videos of a saffron rally in Nuh, the Muslim-majority area in Mewat. He said that Jai Shree Ram slogans were raised in front of Muslim households and that the rally was carried out with over 500 cars filled with “Hindutva supporters” who had entered the area to saffronise Mewat.
On the contrary, the police also confirmed that the rally was completely peaceful and no untoward incident was reported. Interestingly, the rally had happened with due permission of the Police which Faisal ignored.
