A video showing a man exhorting the Muslim community to 'take over' judiciary, police department, administrative services, healthcare and other professions by increasing Muslim representation in these fields is viral with captions falsely claiming that the person is the founder of Himalaya Drug company.
BOOM, in its earlier fact checks concerning The Himalaya Drug Company, had found that its founder Mohammed Manal had passed away in 1986. We also tracked the video to a Facebook page Naqi Ahmed Nadwi Page.
Also read Sudarshan TV UPSC Show: 5 Misleading Claims
The video is viral at a time when the Supreme Court has to decide whether Sudarshan News can air the remaining six episodes from it's 10-part series on 'UPSC Jihad'.
In the clip, a man can be seen speaking to the camera about the Babri Masjid issue. Over a course of nearly 4 minutes, he urges the Muslim youth to take up education and get into judiciary, police, administration, medical, IT and other important fields so as to increase the Muslim representation in these areas.
The man can be heard appealing to the youths to get jobs in all fields so that other communities are dependent on them (Muslims).
The video is viral on social media with a caption reading 'We are all proud of Indian 'Himalayan Drug Company' but see the mentality of it's owner Mohammed Manal and think twice before using the products.#Bycotthimayaproducts#makestrongbharat#awakehindus'.
Watch the video below and check its archived version here.
BOOM received the same video on its tipline number.
The video is viral on Facebook too.
Fact Check
BOOM did a reverse image search on one of the key frames from the video and found an article published on The Siasat Daily on September 7, 2020 which had a screengrab from the clip. While the article did not mention the name of the person, it states him to be a lawyer.
Since the man speaks fluent Urdu and mentions the demolition of Babri masjid in the video, we did a key word search on Facebook with relevant Urdu translation for the words 'Muslim lawyer speaking on Babri masjid demolition'.
(Urdu: مسلمان وکیل بابری مسجد انہدام پر گفتگو کررہے ہیں)
We found the same video uploaded on August 6 on a Facebook page Naqi Ahmed Nadwi Page with an Urdu caption which translates to 'The demolition of the Babri Masjid and the erection of the Ram Temple on its site is a turning point in the history of India which Muslims must seriously consider'.
(Urdu: بابری مسجد کا انہدام اوراسکی جگہ پر رام مندر کا قیام تاریخ ہند کا ایک ایسا موڑ ہے جس کے بارے میں مسلمانوں کو سنجیدگی سے غور کرنا ہوگا!)
The video had been uploaded a day after the Ram Mandir Bhoomi Pujan took place in Ayodhya i.e. August 5, 2020.
The original video runs over 12 minutes and the viral segment starts at the time stamp of 8 minutes 50 second.
BOOM found several pages in the name of Naqi Ahmed Nadwi on Facebook. A YouTube channel by the same name has several videos where the man can be seen speaking on various issues related to the Muslim community.
A LinkedIn profile in the same name uses the photo of the man seen in the viral video as a display picture. The profile mentions that Naqi Ahmed Nadvi currently works as an administrator at a Saudi Arabia based firm Maaden.
View the profile below.
The 'Himalaya' Angle
BOOM has debunked fake news involving The Himalaya Drug Company on earlier occasions too.
In the course of earlier fact checks we found that Mohammed Manal, Himalaya's founder, had passed away in 1986, according to the information on the company's website.
BOOM also compared the facial features of Mohammed Manal and the man in the viral video and found it to be completely different.
Left: Mohammed Manal; Right: Man in the viral video.
However, BOOM was unable to verify whether the man in the video is Naqi Ahmed Nadvi as claimed by the profiles which have shared the viral clip.
We also reached out to Meraj Manal, chairman of Himalaya Drug Company and Mohammed Manal's son, for a comment. The article will be updated upon receiving a response.