CLAIM
A video of Muslim pilgrims offering prayers tweeted by Canada-based controversial writer Tarek Fatah has gone viral on Twitter with over 10,000 retweets.
The caption of the video clip says “Video of Tamil Muslims at the Kaaba 🕋 in Mecca praying for destruction of the #RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and @BJP4India. To replace PM Modi's rule with the rule of Allah in India.”
It insinuates that the devotees in the video are praying against the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) return and also to replace Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rule with Allah’s.
After the prayers in Arabic, the person switches to Tamil language and says, “Do especially pray that our nation gets better. Specifically pray that the RSS should not exist anymore, and that the BJP shouldn’t win this time."
After the video was tweeted on Monday, 29 April, it went viral on social media platform Facebook with the same claim.
The video has gone extremely viral on Facebook.
(Photo: Facebook/Screenshot)
The Quint on WhatsApp received the same video asking for it to be to verified.
FACT
The tweet by Fatah is misleading.
Although the devotees in the video are asked to pray against BJP’s win and that RSS should not exist, they aren’t directed to pray for “PM Modi's rule to be replaced with Allah’s”.
In his tweet, Fatah put a full-stop between the two sentences, but the tweet is still misleading, as the reactions above have shown.
A HISTORY OF HATE-MONGERING
This is not the first time Fatah has tweeted misleading or false news.
Earlier he had shared a morphed image berating a Madrassa teacher for teaching Islam is a superior religion compared to Hinduism.
He had also claimed that “at least 2,000 Rohingya Muslims joined ISIS with plans to attack Nagaland in India's northeast” – a claim that was later busted by AltNews.
Fatah had also falsely claimed that three young girls were beaten for not wearing a hijab.
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