Old Zee News Clip From Telangana Falsely Linked to Congress Win

This video shows a protest against BJP's Nupur Sharma in Mahabubnagar, Telangana.

Fact-Check: Old video of Telangana goes viral with false claim as recent

(Source: Altered by The Quint)

A video of the news channel Zee News' show, DNA, is going viral on social media.

• In this anchor, Sudhir Chaudhary can be heard saying that during a procession in Telangana, protesters tampered with India's flag and wrote 'Kalma' (Islamic phrases) in place of the Ashok Chakra.

What is the claim?: This video is being shared as a recent incident in Telangana after the victory of the Congress party in the state.

• Users also wrote that right after the party's victory, Muslims in the state tampered with the 'Ashok Chakra.'

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot) 

(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

What is the truth?: This report is not recent or related to the victory of the Congress party in Telangana.

• This video of Sudhir Chaudhary's show is from June 2022. During a protest against Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Nupur Sharma in Telangana, the Kalma was written in place of Ashok Chakra in the tricolour.

How did we find out?: The viral video is from Zee News show DNA which Sudhir Chaudhary used to host before joining Aaj Tak in July 2022.

• From here it became clear that this incident happened before July 2022 and not recently as Chaudhary is no longer the host of the show DNA.

• When we checked the official YouTube handle of Zee News, we found a video of the DNA show uploaded on 10 June 2022.

• In this video of 1 hour 4 minutes, the viral video portion can be seen from 33 minutes 11 seconds.

• According to this report, this incident of defacing the tricolour took place in Mahabubnagar, Telangana.

• There were protests in different parts of the country against Nupur Sharma for her comments on Prophet Mohammad.

The incident took place in Mahabubnagar, Telangana.

(Source: Zee News YouTube/Screenshot) 

More reports related to this incident: With a relevant keyword search, we found more news reports by Deccan Chronicle dated of 11 June 2022 and India TV website dated 10 June 2022.

• According to reports, after the Friday prayers, there was a protest against Nupur Sharma in Mahabubnagar, during which a flag with Kalma written in place of Ashok Chakra in the tricolor was hoisted.

According to the report, this incident is of June 2022.

(Source: Deccan Chronicle/Screenshot) 

Conclusion: It is clear that the viral video is from 2022 and not related to the Congress victory in the state. The video shows a protest against Nupur Sharma that took place in Telangana.

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