A 4 year old video of Waris Pathan threatening the police is viral as recent, from Lockdown.

April 29, 2020April 29, 2020 Aishwarya Varma

Spread the truth:

In a viral video on WhatsApp and Facebook, a man can be heard threatening a police officer and telling him that the mosque in the area will not be closed and the use of loudspeakers will not be banned. He speaks to the police officer aggressively and warns him against carrying out any actions against the mosque in the area. The video of this disgraceful act is being shared across social media.

Claim 1: “See their dadagiri (hooliganism) with our Coronavirus warriors who is doing their duty towards us to save our lives & these type of mullahs are threatening the police officer who is doing his duty very honestly.”

Claim 2: “If this is the situation 👆👆👆 Don’t expect to open the lockdown on 3rd May 😮😮😮😨😨😨😨😷😷😷 Byculla Mumbai”

The video bears the logo of the media company Mumbai Live, with the location mentioned as Byculla in Mumbai.

Facebook

The video was shared by a Facebook profile with name “Col Retd Rummy Patel” which was shared by approximately 1000 people. Deleted now but you can see it archived here

Same Profile’s post on a Facebook group “We Support Arnab” garnered approx 3500 shares

(Archived)

The post has over 3500 shares

Archived

Twitter

Arjun SIngh, BJP | Member Of Parliament, Barrackpore Lok Sabha tweeted –

Look at the open threat being given by #warispathan to police.
And @rautsanjay61 ji of ruling party in Maharashtra was trying to teach @myogiadityanath ji on how to handle law and order.
Pehle Mumbai to sambhal lijye!#byculla pic.twitter.com/bughOE3Xq3

— Arjun Singh (@ArjunsinghWB) April 29, 2020

Truth

Using InVid, a video verification tool, the video was broken down into keyframes. These keyframes were put through a reverse image search.

The oldest matching results redirected us to former MLA Waris Pathan‘s Facebook page. Waris Pathan (the man in the video) is a member of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) party and was an MLA from the Byculla constituency in Mumbai.

The video that is going viral, however, is taken from news portal Mumbai Live‘s YouTube channel, who posted it 4 days after the incident happened. The description of the video states –

“Video of MIM MLA Waris Pathan abusing police has gone viral. This happened when police asked Pathan to lower down the loud speaker’s voice which did not go well with Pathan and he started abusing the police.”

The same video, carrying the location tag and the logo of the organisation is being shared across platforms today. (Link here)

Pathan’s shameful act of threatening the police was recorded when they had arrived in Byculla and allegedly instructed the people to lower the volume of the loudspeaker that was used in the mosque.

Given how quickly the video started to spread under the wrong context, Waris Pathan tweeted in his defence and clarified that the incident did not take place during the pandemic, but was ‘5 years old’ and was being shared now, during a nationwide lockdown.

After my intervention issue was resolved & the Cops present there also thanked me for it

I would like to urge @AnilDeshmukhNCP & @MahaCyber1 to take note of these fake posts & take action as per law,dont let any miscreants disturb the peace of nation & state

Fake news must stop

— Waris Pathan (@warispathan) April 28, 2020

Regardless of the fact that this video is 4 years old, threatening and disrespecting the police in this way is a condemnable act.

It is important to check and make sure that the content we receive and share is genuine during already troubling times like these.

This is an old video which has been shared during the pandemic but it has nothing to do with the coronavirus related lockdown.