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| - A video is viral on social media with the claim that a junior government office worker in Aligarh spat into a senior judicial officer’s glass of water. The video, which is around 80-second long, shows a man pouring out a glass of water, then proceeding to spit into it, unaware of the fact that he is being recorded. The viral video comes with a voice-over narration reporting that the incident took place at a judicial office in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, where a judge had become a victim of ‘thook jihad’.
An X-verified user named Kalpana Srivastav, who runs the handle @Lawyer_Kalpana and describes herself as a criminal advocate practising in Delhi, shared the viral video with the claim that this instance of ‘thook jihad’ is as recent as July 2024, and has taken place at the Aligarh court. (Archive)
थूक जिहाद का बिल्कुल नया विडियो (July 2024 का) अलीगढ़ कोर्ट से।
न्यायालय के जज भी हुए थूक ज़िहाद का शिकार pic.twitter.com/JQfWTDkBgC
— कल्पना श्रीवास्तव 🇮🇳 (@Lawyer_Kalpana) July 25, 2024
Legal activist and BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay shared the viral video with a caption in Hindi, calling for an abolition of the ‘Mughal school’, and urged the ruling government to implement ‘One country one education code’, insinuating that the person spitting into the glass of water was a Muslim. He later deleted the tweet but not before it had been reshared around 1,800 times. (Archive)
X-verified user @ajaychauhan41 also shared the video claiming that it was an instance of ‘thook jihad’, a term invented by the Right Wing to defame Muslims. (Archive)
थूक जिहाद
अलीगढ़ के जज साहब भी हुए थूक जिहाद के शिकार pic.twitter.com/EgWhBiirA4
— हम लोग We The People 🇮🇳 (@ajaychauhan41) July 26, 2024
@ajaychauhan41 has been found by Alt News sharing communal propaganda innumerable times in the past.
Amitabh Chaudhary (@MithilaWaala), another user who regularly amplifies communal disinformation on social media, shared the video claiming that the office peon was committing ‘thook jihad’ by spitting into the glass of water. (Archive)
Aligarh (Harigarh) : Peon of judge in district court uses to spit in the water which he use to give to the judge.
If you too have them as staff or employee , be 100% assured they must have done this to you too !!
This jihad is not restricted till their homes, restaurants and… pic.twitter.com/ewoxuf0kzx
— Amitabh Chaudhary (@MithilaWaala) July 26, 2024
We noticed several other posts on X with the same claim. (Archives – 1, 2, 3, 4)
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Fact Check
We ran a reverse image search on one of the key frames from the viral video, which led us to a tweet from May 2018. It features the same clip that went viral on social media, but does not mention anything on the religion of the accused. (Archive)
इतना गिर जाता है इंसान..
अलीगढ़ में चपरासी की घिनौनी करतूत. गिलास में थूककर पिलाने जा रहा था न्यायिक अधिकारी को पानी. हुआ निलंबित. @narendramodi @dgpup @akshaykumar @ajaydevgn @eyehinakhan pic.twitter.com/d05qNGSqRc
— Himanshu Tripathi (@thimanshut) May 28, 2018
Taking a cue from this, we ran a relevant keyword search on Google, and came across a news report from The Times of India dated May 29, 2018. The same video which is now viral is embedded in their report.
The report states that the junior office worker was identified as Vikas Gupta, and the incident took place on May 22, 2018. Gupta was immediately suspended. The president of the class IV employees’ union is quoted in the report as saying that Gupta had not been doing well mentally, since he had been harassed at work over the last two months, and this could have possibly led to him spit in his senior officer’s glass of water.
Moreover, Aligarh Police commented on one of the viral posts on July 26, 2024, urging the user not to share false information. They said that the incident was from 2018 and appropriate action had been take against the accused person. (Archive)
कृपया बिना तथ्य तस्दीक किए भ्रामक पोस्ट न करें ।
उपरोक्त प्रकरण वर्ष 2018 का है, जिसमें तत्समय संबंधित विभाग द्वारा चपरासी के विरूद्ध आवश्यक कार्यवाही की गयी थी ।
— ALIGARH POLICE (@aligarhpolice) July 26, 2024
In conclusion, a video that shows a man named Vikas Gupta spitting into a glass of water is falsely viral with the claim that the accused is a Muslim committing ‘thook jihad.’
Prantik Ali is an intern at Alt News.
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