Old Video Misrepresented as Muslims Pelting Stones at Hindu Bungalows in Kerala and Issuing Eviction Threats - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
July 24, 2023
A video depicting some people pelting stones at a building is being widely shared, claiming to show recent visuals of Muslim men throwing stones at Hindu Bungalows in Kerala and threatening them to vacate. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Recent visuals of Muslim men throwing stones at Hindu Bungalows in Kerala and threatening them to vacate.
Fact: The visuals belong to August 2016 and show Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) activists attacking houses and offices of CPI(M) leaders in Nadapuram, Kerala. This assault occurred in retaliation for the murder of an IUML worker, Aslam, allegedly by CPI(M) workers on 13 August 2016, just two days before the attack. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
Reverse image search of the keyframes extracted from the viral video led us to a news bulletin uploaded by the Manorama News YouTube channel on 15 August 2016. According to this report, viral visuals show activists of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) attacking houses & Offices of CPI(M) leaders along with BJP and Congress in Nadapuram, Kerala. Cases have been registered against 50 persons who carried out this attack. As per the media reports, the assault happened in retaliation for the murder of an IUML worker, Aslam, allegedly by CPI(M) workers on 13 August 2016, two days before this attack.
Aslam was one of the accused in the murder case of Shibin, a CPI(M) worker, who was allegedly killed by a 10-member gang of IUML workers at Thuneri near Nadapuram on 22 January 2015. Aslam was the third accused in this case. However, after being acquitted during the trial, he left for Dubai. When Aslam returned to Kerala for a vacation, he was brutally killed on 13 August 2016. The police arrested all the 11 accused individuals involved in this murder.
According to Hindustan Times, Nadapuram is infamous for politically motivated violence involving various parties such as CPI(M) and IUML, etc. The political rift between these parties became significant after the murder of IUML’s Ariyil Shukkoor in Kannur in February 2012. Subsequently, violence erupted again with the murders of Shibin in 2015 and Aslam in 2016, respectively.
To sum it up, an old video showing activists of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) attacking houses and offices of CPI(M) in Nadapuram, Kerala, in retaliation for the murder of an IUML worker in 2016 is being falsely shared as recent footage of Muslim men throwing stones at Hindu bungalows in Kerala and threatening them to vacate.