Old video from Peru shared as visuals of Muslims mixing chemicals in rice to reduce Hindu population - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
November 1, 2021
A video is being shared on social media claiming it as the visuals of rice mill workers adding chemicals to white rice and selling them as brown rice in India. Sharing the video, this post alerts people not to buy brown rice at hawker centres in India. The same video was sent to our Whatsapp Tipline (+91 9247052470) number claiming it as the visuals of Muslims mixing chemicals in rice to reduce the Hindu population in India. Let’s verify the claims made in the post.
Claim: Video of Muslims adding chemicals in rice to reduce the Hindu population in India.
Fact: The video shared in the post shows an old incident that took place in Peru, not India. This video shows supermarket employees stirring normal rice with colouring aniline. This video has nothing to do with the Muslim community living in India. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE
On reverse image search of the screenshots in the video, a video with similar visuals was found posted by a Facebook user on 20 August 2018. This user reported it as visuals of workers stirring plastic rice with plain white rice and adding colouring aniline to match the colour. Sharing the same video, a user mentioned that the incident had taken place in Peru.
On observing the video carefully, we could see ‘CASSERITA’  brand on rice bags. ‘CASSERITA PARA LA FAMILIA’ is a Peru-based rice merchandise company.
When we searched for more details of the video using these keywords, a video with similar visuals was found published by the ‘Latin America Press RTV’ news channel on 21 August 2019. This news channel too had reported it as the visuals of rice mill workers stirring plastic rice with white rice and adding colouring aniline to match the colour. This news channel reported that the incident had taken place in Lima city, Peru. Although the concept of plastic rice is a myth, this incident of mixing colours with white rice did take place in Peru.
To sum it up, an old video from Peru is being shared as visuals of Muslims mixing chemicals in rice to reduce the Hindu population in India.