A video of weeping Muslim women is being shared widely on several social media platforms with a claim that Muslims in Kashmir are being oppressed. This video is being shared in the light of Indian Parliament’s decision to revoke Article 370 that provided special provisions to the Jammu and Kashmir state. Let’s try to verify the authenticity of the video and also, the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir being oppressed.
Fact: The video shows a funeral procession of a policeman Farooq Ahmed a resident of Keegam in Shopian District, who was shot dead by militants at the residence of Hurriyat leader Fazal Haq Qureshi on February 25, 2018. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Since the revoke of Article 370, social media is flooded with many old, irrelevant videos and photographs attributing them to the present prevailing conditions in Kashmir. The above is also one such video.
When the video in the post is run through ‘InVid’ plugin, several keyframes of it are obtained. On subjecting these keyframes to reverse image search technique, a certain keyframe directs to a video link on YouTube. This video is same as the one posted on the Facebook and it had the title “Kashmir- Hundreds attend funeral of cop killed by militants”. When looked for the timestamp, it was found to be uploaded on February 25, 2018. The video carried a description with it- “Hundreds of people mourned and joined the funeral procession of a policeman Farooq Ahmed of Keegam, Shopian who was shot dead by Militants at the residence of Hurriyat leader Fazal Haq Qureshi yesterday”.
A tweet in this regard by SP Vaid who was Chief of Jammu and Kashmir Police (JKP) when that incident had occurred was found.
We have lost another precious life when Constable Farooq Ahmad was martyred today in Srinagar. Be more careful boys, it’s the proxy war that we are fighting in Jammu & Kashmir.
— Shesh Paul Vaid (@spvaid) February 25, 2018
Several newspaper reports corroborating with the description, seen below the Youtube video were also found, which can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, an old funeral procession video of a Kashmiri policeman is being shared with a false narrative.
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