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Did Cleric Taha Siddiqui Call For War Between Muslims And Hindus? No, Viral Video Is Clipped Out Of Context!
West Bengal, 5 Feb 2023 7:19 AM GMT
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We found that Siddiqui's speech, where he talks about Muslims and Hindus waging war was actually in terms of children competing over education in Bengal.
A video showing Islamic cleric Taha Siddiqui of Furfura Sharif in West Bengal is going viral across social media. The video has been shared with the claim that the cleric was inciting Muslims to wage war against Hindus.
The Furfura cleric has been accused in the past of making derogatory remarks about Hinduism, and a report from June 2022 published by Times Now says a complaint was filed against him on this basis.
Claim:
The viral video, with a duration of 43 seconds, shows Siddiqui addressing a crowd in Bengali, apparently demanding that Muslims go to war against Hindus.
"Hey Muslims, wake up! Hey Muslims, you should teach your sons and daughters to fight. Teach them to go to war. Be ready, be prepared. Should prepare Muslim sons and daughters. Parents, keep yourself prepared for your sons and daughters. We have to fight with Hindus. We have to do war with Hindus,” he says in the viral video.
The video was shared by Abhijit Majumder on Twitter with the claim, “Peerzada Taha Siddiqui of Furfura Sharif mazaar, #Bengal, exhorts Ms to prepare their children for war against Hs.” Hs stands for Hindus and Ms stands for Muslims.
Kanchan Gupta, Senior Advisor, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, shared the video with the caption, "Years ago I wrote an article headlined ‘How green is my Bengal?’ which fetched the usual cacophony of #LeftLiberal protest and snark. Sadly Bengali ‘intellectuals’ are collaborators in this hate project. Useful Idiots don’t realise the mob will devour them first."
The video has been widely shared by several users across Twitter with similar claims.
Fact Check:
The Logical Indian fact check team verified the viral claim and found it to be misleading. The viral video is clipped.
A keyword search across Twitter led us to a video uploaded by journalist Tamal Saha on February 3, 2023. The caption reads, “Fact: On January 27, Furfura Sharif Pirzada said: Muslims wake up, parents teach your children to fight. Get ready; Muslim children have to fight a war against Hindus and Christians. But that war should not be fought with swords, arms or lathis. That war should be over EDUCATION.
“A Hindu boy should compete with a Muslim boy over education; a Muslim girl should fight with a Hindu girl in education. Then when Hindu & Muslim children of this state excel, they will fight a war with another state, but that war again will be over education.”
In this video, he says, “Be prepared Muslims and prepare your children. Teach them to fight against the Hindus and the Christians. But this fight should not be fought with guns, swords, or sticks. This fight will be fought through education.”
Siddiqui continues, “In Bengal, Hindu and Muslim boys and girls will enter into a competition with each other over education. One day, Muslim and Hindu boys and girls of Bengal will make so much progress that they will together fight against other states over education.”
We then conducted a keyword search for the entire video containing Siddiqui’s comments. This led us to a 27-minute version of the address on YouTube. After he talks about waging a war, which is the portion heard in the viral video, he goes on to talk
At the 16:24 mark in the video, Siddiqui says in Bengali, "When I said this, I noticed that the faces of the ministers seated on the dais had receded into shock.. everybody was stunned.. they started thinking if I had arrived there to spread the fire of communalism."
Following this, Siddiqui explains his stance on the “war” between Hindus and Muslims. He says, "Muslims, be ready. Make your sons and daughters ready. Teach them to fight. Teach them to go to war against Hindus and Christians. But this war should not be fought with swords. This is not to be a battle fought with guns and sticks. The war will be for education.”
“In Bengal, a Hindu boy and a Muslim boy can battle for education and move forward. Muslim girls can battle with Hindu girls and move ahead. Moving forward, one day, Hindus united with Muslims in Bengal will together fight another state in a battle over education.”
Conclusion:
We found that Siddiqui's speech, where he talks about Muslims and Hindus waging a war was actually in terms of children competing over education in Bengal. The video has been edited out of context to spread the false claim that Siddiqui has encouraged war between the two religions.
If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.
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