4-Year Old Video Showing Bangladeshis With Fake Indian Passports Revived

A four year old video showing two men revealing Bangladeshi passports hidden in the soles of their sandals to airport authorities is being shared in the wake of Anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in India.

In the 1.31 minutes video, a man wearing a brown jacket can be seen removing a Bangladeshi passport concealed in the sole of a sandal and hand it over to an official. Another man, in a pink shirt, also removes a Bangladeshi passport from his sandal while the camera pans to an Indian passport lying on the table. One can hear a man instructing both individuals in Arabic throughout the video.

Click here to view, and here for an archive.

The video is being shared with the claim that two Bangladeshi nationals traveling with Indian passports were arrested at an airport in Saudi Arabia.

It is being shared as recent and is being linked to CAA with the caption, "This is the reason why we need CAA. The ACT came for National benefit while traitors made it communal. SHAME on the protestors!".

Click here to view, and here for an archive.

We searched with the same caption on Facebook and found that the video was viral with the same caption.

FACT-CHECK

We broke the video into key-frames and performed a reverse image search using Yandex, a Russian search engine whose search results showed that the video was online since December, 2015.

A YouTube video uploaded on December 24, 2015, with the caption reads, "Saudi customs control" when translated from Arabic 'ضبط الجمارك السعوديه'.   

However, on searching on YouTube with keywords - 'fake', 'passport', 'Indian' we found an older YouTube video with the caption, "Bangladeshi Entered in Kuwait with Indian Passport" uploaded on December 17, 2015.

Taking a cue that the video could  be from Kuwait we searched on Google with keywords and found an article on a website named Arab Times Online dated December 19, 2015.

The article titled 'Many Bangladeshis held trying to enter on 'fake' Indian passports' sates that the several Bangladeshis had been arrested by the immigration officers for attempting to enter the country on forged Indian passports. The report cited Al- Shahed daily. 

Further the article goes on to mention similar events that unfold in the viral video. It adds that the suspects had earlier been deported from the country and when they produced their Indian travel documents, they turned out to be forged.

After which the police checked their baggage and found their original passports hidden in shoes. "The men have been deported from the country" it stated citing Al- Shahed daily. 

Additionally we found another Facebook post dated December 18, 2015, with the viral video by a page named 'Kuwait Reporter'. The caption on the post reads, "Bangladeshi Entered in Kuwait with Indian Passport #Kuwait بنغالي يدخل الكويت بجواز هندي مزور"

BOOM could not independently verify if the video was from Kuwait or the events mentioned in the article, however our analysis goes on show that the video has been online since December 2015, and is not recent as being claimed in some viral posts.

The Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 was passed by Parliament, as was assented by President Ram Nath Kovind last week. It has been a bone of contention among many, with protests, primarily by students, being held all over India. The Act permits six non-Muslim religious minorities, who come to India as refugees fleeing religious persecution, expedited access to Indian citizenship. While opponents of the Act say that it is discriminatory, the government says that it is a humane piece of legislation for helpless refugees with nowhere else to go.