An old speech of a Bangladeshi Muslim scholar targeting Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati is falsely linked to Indian elections - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
May 2, 2024
A video (here, here and here) of a man appearing to be asking Hindus to accept Islam is being shared across social media with a caption in Hindi that translates to ‘ If Congress comes to power, we will go to the doorsteps of the Hindus and give them an invitation to Islam.’ We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: The video shows a Muslim man saying that he would convert Hindus to Islam if the Congress party comes to power.
Fact: This is an old video from Bangladesh; it has nothing to do with the ongoing 2024 general elections. The person in the video is a muslim scholar named ‘Syed Irshad Ahmed Al Bhukari.’ He said this in Dinajpur, Bangladesh, in 2021, in response to India’s Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati’s comments on Islam. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
A Google reverse image search using screenshots to find more details about the viral video led us to a post (archive link) made by a social media user in May 2021.
Friendly message from Bangladesh:
-Corona pandemic and the many deaths and cremations in India is because of 'blasphemy' by Narsinghanand
-Hindus, do tauba otherwise your dead bodies won't be cremated but eaten by cheel-kawwe
-Ae pandit Narsinghanand, accept our Islam pic.twitter.com/CWwa75pLab
This video is longer than the video in the viral post. At the beginning of this video, the same man featured in the viral video holding a microphone can be seen saying that he is speaking from Dinajpur, Bangladesh.
Taking this as a hint, we searched the internet with relevant keywords to learn more about this person and found his Facebook profile and YouTube channel. His name is ‘Syed Irshad Ahmed Al Bukhari,’ and according to his Facebook ‘intro’ page, he is from Dinajpur, Bangladesh and is an International Islamic scholar.  You can see the full version of the viral video uploaded on his YouTube channel here(archive link)(also here). The title of the video is ‘Dr Syed Irshad Bukhari gave Mubahila Challenge to Vile Narsinghanand Saraswati from Bangladesh,’ and was uploaded to YouTube on 30 April 2021.
In the video, Saeed Irshad responded to India’s Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati’s alleged comments on Islam.
The lines he spoke in the viral video can be seen at 1:35 and  7:00 marks, respectively. He made this speech in Dinajpur, Bangladesh, not in India. Nowhere in this video did he speak about Congress or the Indian elections. Interestingly, even in the viral video, he did not speak about the Congress party or make the alleged statement.
To sum up, the person in the viral video made the speech in Dinajpur, Bangladesh, in 2021, not in India. This video has nothing to do with the ongoing 2024 elections.