Right-wing accounts used a street play video in Kerala to portray murder of RSS supporter: Fact Check
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Establishing once again how hate is being spread on social media with fake and false content, even using a video of street play from accounts belonging to right-wing supporters, a video was circulated on social with a note that in Kerala RSS woman supporter was shot dead by Muslims.
The video in question is viral for the very purported aim that is to create communal division, particularly placing the Kerala state as the hub of Muslim terrorism, was accompanied by captions in Hindi that translated to "RSS supporter woman shot dead by Jihadis.”
Now the video is found deleted from the said social media accounts but it had garnered about 40,000 views. When the video appeared on social media with the divisive caption, the reactions to it from like-minded accounts were devastating, prompting the fact checker Alt News to bust the motive behind the video.
The video was initially shared on Twitter by an account with the handle @HiNdU05019434, using the aforementioned caption. Another user, @Vijay754510, also shared the video with a similar caption, claiming that the incident occurred in Kerala and involved the shooting of a woman who supported RSS by Muslims. This tweet received over 15,000 views.
Furthermore, a Twitter user named @kavita_tewari, who identifies as a 'Proud Bharatiya' and is followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, shared the video on May 20, asserting that the incident had taken place within the previous two days. Although she later deleted the tweet, it had already garnered over 15,000 views and 200 retweets.
However, it has now been revealed that the video does not depict a real-life shooting incident but rather a scene from a street performance. The performance involved actors portraying a mob and a lead actor delivering a speech. A transcript of the scene reveals that the victim was a journalist who had spoken out against RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), and the play aimed to highlight the dangers of silence and fascism.
Upon investigation, it was discovered that the street performance was staged by the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) in the Malappuram district of Kerala. Multiple news reports from 2017 corroborated this information.
Alt News also found the official Facebook page of DYFI Kalikavu, which posted the actual video on September 8, 2017. The post was in response to the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh on September 5, 2017, outside her residence in Bengaluru. The video's caption translated to "This is DYFI Kalikavu... A dashing item against the RSS... A public trial—through a street play—of the RSS for the murder of Gauri Lankesh..."
