A clipped video of West Bengal's Furfura Sharif cleric Taha Siddiqui is being shared with a false claim that he asked Muslims to wage war against Hindus.
BOOM found that the video is clipped, and the full video shows him encouraging Muslims to compete with Hindus in terms of education.
Pirzada Taha Siddiqui is a cleric at Furfura Sharif in West Bengal, a prominent place of religious significance for Muslims. Siddiqui has been accused in the past about making derogatory remarks about Hinduism and a report from June 2022 published by Times Now says a complaint was filed against him regarding the same.
The viral video shows Siddiqui addressing a crowd in Bengali, asking Muslims to go to war against Hindus. A rough translation of the portion in the viral clip is, "Hey Muslims, wake up! Hey Muslims, you should teach your sons and daughters to do 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."
The video was shared by journalist Abhijit Majumder on Twitter with the caption, "Peerzada Taha Siddiqui of Furfura Sharif mazaar, #Bengal, exhorts Ms to prepare their children for war against Hs." Ms and Hs stands for Muslims and Hindus respectively in this tweet.
Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.
The video was also quoted by Kanchan Gupta, Senior Advisor, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, who wrote, "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."
Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.
The video was also shared by BJP worker Rakesh Singh, Hindu Genocide Watch, and Rashtra Jyoti and is also being shared on Facebook.
Click here to view.
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that Taha Siddiqui's speech has been taken out of context in the clipped video, and in the full version, he is asking Muslims to wage a war against Hindus in terms of education.
A keyword search of the video on Twitter led us to journalist Tamal Saha's tweet, who had shared a longer version of the video.
Saha's tweet also includes a translation of a part of the speech that spoke about competing in terms of education.
A keyword search on YouTube led us to a 27-minute version of the address. Here, after talking about waging a war, Siddiqui in Bengali says, "When I said this, I noticed that the faces of the ministers seated on the dais had shrunk.. everybody was flummoxed.. they started wondering if I had gone there to spread the fire of communalism."
The same can be heard at the 16:24 counter in the video.
He then explains his statement about waging a war between Hindus and Muslims by, "Muslims, be ready. Be ready your sons and daughters. Teach them to battle and fight. Teach them to wage war against Hindus and Christians. But the war should not be with swords. Not be a battle with guns and sticks. The war will be for education. In Bengal, a Hindu boy and a Muslim boy vis-à-vis do battle for education and move forward. Muslim girl can do battle with Hindu girl and move ahead. Moving forward, one day, Hindus united with Muslims in Bengal will together fight another state. That battle for what? That will be for education."
The part about Muslim and Hindu children competing in terms of education in Bengal and then competing with other states too has been edited out of the viral video to claim that Siddiqui has encouraged war between the two religions.