An old image from February 2019 showing a huge crowd in a rally organised by the Left Front in Kolkata is being falsely shared as a recent one from the Left-Congress-ISF rally.
On February 17, a video showing shocking visuals from a rally carried out by Popular Front of India (PFI) in Mallapuram, Kerala has surfaced on social media. Following this, a video has now gone viral showing a march supposedly by RSS workers claiming in retaliation to the PFI rally, 20 thousand RSS workers organized the rally that can be seen in the viral video.
The video was shared on a Facebook page with a caption in Hindi that can be roughly translated to, "RSS workers were held captive, in return, 20 thousand workers took out a rally #RSS #MohanBhagwat."
Several other Facebook and Twitter users are sharing this video with the same caption.
In our investigation, we found this claim to be false.
With the help of reverse image search using the keyframes, we found this video uploaded on a YouTube channel on December 28, 2019 with the title, "A huge RSS march past in Hyderabad."
As per the description of the video, the video shows the first-ever meeting of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-Telangana prant. Three different groups of karyakartas began the march from Mansoorabad, Hastinapuram and Vanasthalipuram, merged at LB Nagar X roads, and proceed to the indoor stadium at Saroornagar.
With the help of keyword search, we also found an article published by Scroll on the rally.
Similar pictures of the RSS mega march in Hyderabad were also posted by news agency ANI on Twitter, on December 25, 2019.
Clearly, the video is old and not a recent one as claimed in the posts. And the claim that RSS members were held captive by Popular Front of India (PFI) activists is also false. The video which earlier went viral shows PFI workers dressed as RSS members.
According to a report published by OpIndia, on February 17, a rally was held in Tenhipalam town in the Malappuram district of Kerala, and the video shows the procession passing through Chelari, the main commercial center of the town. The two men in the RSS uniform were members of PFI who had dressed up for the march.
A PFI member stated that the parade represents a fight that happened between the Britishers and the people of Malabar in 1921. Times Now quoted PFI's Anees Ahmed saying, "Every year people celebrate the occasion here and the idea that was being depicted in this particular video was that the people of Malabar played an essential role in fighting against the external threat of British imperialism in 1921 and now when RSS is posing the internal threat of fascism, people of Malabar will also confront them and protect our country." You can read the complete report here.
In conclusion, an old video from 2019 showing a huge rally by RSS members in Hyderabad is being shared with the false claim that RSS organized a huge rally in retaliation to a recent rally organized by PFI in Kerala Mallapuram.
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