Old photo from Bangladesh is viral as crowd gathered to welcome Owaisi for recent Uttarprdesh rally.
Asaduddin Owaisi chief of AIMIM (All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen), recently visited Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming elections. Owaisi being a prominent political figure especially amongst the Muslim community, thus it becomes easier to spread misleading information.
Uttar Pradesh elections for Legislative Assembly are scheduled from February till March 2022. Owaisi landed in Uttar Pradesh apropos the upcoming elections. Since then, one viral misleading image is being shared on social sites.
CLAIM:
People gathered at large to welcome AIMIM chief Owaisi, during his visit to Uttar Pradesh with regards to the arriving elections in 2022.
Multiple users’s shared the image with captions like ‘UP MEIN OWAISI”. The image was mostly shared by Owaisi’s followers to display their affection and respect towards him. The intent was to show how happily in huge numbers people welcomed him during his Uttar Pradesh visit
One can easily see the excitement people have within themselves for their beloved political figure and his Uttar Pradesh rally. Not only Facebook but people took their Twitter accounts to post about the same on their Twitter handles.
Here are some tweets where we can see the image with various captions.
More individuals posted the image but later deleted them, we can still access the archive link for few uploads.
सभी को आजमा चुके हैं इस बार सिर्फ अपने आप को वोट देना है #यूपी_में_ओवैसी इंशाअल्लाह pic.twitter.com/vCjMkE7lxp
— Nikhat khan (@nikhat69) July 15, 2021
#यूपी_में_ओवैसी
Only #यूपी_में_ओवैसी pic.twitter.com/KAB4VGmRyD— Jamale Mustafa | جمال مصطفى (@JamaleMustafa78) July 15, 2021
People shared the same post with the same caption UP mein Owaisi even on Twitter. These people can be categorized as Owaisi followers, by their actions even though they themselves aren’t present in the rally yet are sharing about Owaisi’s Uttar Pradesh visit. Not to inform others but as cheerful news that Owaisi is in Uttar Pradesh and also hoping for his success in Assembly elections 2022.
One Twitter user expressed their point of view on Owaisi’s visit stating, it is difficult for him to win in UP assembly elections. Still, somehow he has managed to leave a positive impact especially on Muslims, Dalits, and other suppressed people.
#यूपी_में_ओवैसी
It is true that owaisi ji is difficult to win in utterpadesh, but we cant deny that owaisi is become heartbeat and sound of dalit, muslim and suppressed people. pic.twitter.com/66COX3zBRp— Malik Ji (@Malikaffan98) July 15, 2021
Truth
The viral photo claimed as Owasi’s welcome in Uttar Pradesh is actualy from a 3 year old Eid rally in Bangladesh.
When we reverse searched the image, we found that the image doesn’t belong to any rally carried out in Uttar Pradesh especially by Asaduddin Owaisi. The image is an aerial view of the Eid-e-Miladunnabi procession carried out on 10th November 2019 in Chittagong city of Bangladesh. The image is almost 2 years old, yet is being widely shared on social sites claiming to be a glimpse from Asaduddin Owaisi’s recent Uttar Pradesh rally.
Various news channels published an article on the event. A Bangladeshi news channel named Banglanews24 had covered the procession named “Jashne Julus”.
Further after doing the reverse image search, we found few videos on youtube consisting of visuals from the event, where we can clearly see the truck with the Bangladesh flag on the side.
YOUTUBE:
Another is a 10 minutes video, uploaded on Youtube in which most of the procession is covered from aerial view.
After playing the video from 01:07 minutes we can clearly see the truck and also at the top of it the flag of Bangladesh has been placed.
Source: The Quint
The State President of AIMIM tweeted a few images and video of Owaisi’s visit to Dhasana Ghaziabad. The images are taken when Asaduddin was inaugurating the party office for the 2022 Legislative Assembly elections.
Live- डासना ग़ाज़ियाबाद में @aimim_national अध्यक्ष @asadowaisi ने पार्टी कार्यलय का उद्धघाटन किया |#यूपी_में_ओवैसी #MissionUttarPradesh2022#AIMIMUttarPradesh pic.twitter.com/4gz0zIwrJL
— Shaukat Ali (@imshaukatali) July 15, 2021
As we can see the poster behind Owaisi says “MISSION 2022” it is easily understood that Owaisi conducted the rally, inaugurated the party office, and visited Uttar Pradesh just to begin and apply their strategy to win in 2020 elections.
Live- हसनपुर, अमरोहा, उत्तर प्रदेश#यूपी_में_ओवैसी #MissionUttarPradesh2022 #AIMIMUttarPradesh @asadowaisi @aimim_national pic.twitter.com/NeuKYDOAPS
— Shaukat Ali (@imshaukatali) July 15, 2021
If we compare the two images one from Chittagong and the other one from Uttar Pradesh we can observe that Owaisi is traveling from the car and in the Chittagong video there is no single DISCOVERY CAR on the road. In the Chittagong video, the road is crowded with hundreds of people and few trucks as it is Julus on account of EID.
The Jashne Julus was one of the biggest Eid processions this information was shared by users to let people know about it and celebrate the festival of eid.
World Biggest Jasne Juluse Eid E Milad-Un-Nabi (ﷺ) Chittagong in Bangladesh.
Leading by Awlad e Rasul Hozur Allama Tahir Shah (M.J.A) 😍#Mawlid #Mawlid2019 #MiladUnNabi #EideMilad #EiDeMiladunNabi #MawlidunNabi pic.twitter.com/d4roBYsAFb
— Yeasin Arafat Imran (@YeasinArafat769) November 10, 2019
The same image was shared in 2019 during the CAB (CITIZEN AMENDMENT BILL) protest. People shared the image on their social sites claiming that the image is from protests done in Mumbai against the CAA. India Today debunked the misleading information back then with proper shreds of evidence.
People have developed a bad habit of trusting fake and misleading information, which is why misleading and fake news can be propagated easily through social sites. It is true that Asaduddin Owaisi visited Uttar Pradesh and even inaugurated the new party office this we can get from the State Head of AIMIM Shaukat Ali’s tweet. But the image which is being shared doesn’t belong to Owaisi’s last week Uttar Pradesh welcoming by people nor the rally.
Even though the same image has been debunked several times still people make use of it to claim various stories and happenings.
Recently famous Indian Photo-Journalist Danish Siddique who received the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 was killed while covering a clash between Afghan Special Forces and Taliban in Kandahar. The above image of “Jashne Julus” is now being shared on Twitter, claiming the image is from Danish Siddique’s funeral. The user is also pointing out how the covid protocols are being mismanaged during the funeral. Furthermore, we can notice that the user is indirectly blaming the government by using the words “Ssshhhh secularism”.
Danish siddique funeral….. Mismanaged covid protocols by – u know whom….
Ssshhhh secularism… pic.twitter.com/K5TqzJTqJT
— Indu Makkal Katchi (Offl) 🇮🇳 (@Indumakalktchi) July 19, 2021
The viral image and claims are misleading but already shared by multiple users through their social accounts, without confirming if it is true in nature or not. It is high time now and citizens need to become mature enough especially in matters relating to fake news and information. People should now start making use of fact verification tools and learn how to access the tools there are many tutorials available on youtube for the same. Media literacy is the only way through which we can eradicate this issue of fake news and information from the digitalized world.
