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| - Fact Check: Not 'Muslim scholar', this provocative speech was made by a Hindu preacher
A video of a bearded man giving a provocative speech is making rounds on social media. The speech was not made by a Muslim scholar but by a Hindu preacher.
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India Today Fact Check
The man in the video is not a Muslim scholar. He is a Hindu preacher named Acharya Prashant Sharma.
A video of a bearded man giving a provocative speech has been circulating on social media. The claim was that a “Muslim scholar” was asking Hindus to introspect why they were letting themselves be oppressed by Muslims.
In the clip that was little more than two minutes long, the man implored Hindus to read their own scriptures and asked why 90 crore Hindus were scared of 25 crore Muslims in India. He asked if their faith had taught Hindus to do nothing when their “mothers and sisters are killed and made the target of love jihad.”
“Is this what your religion taught you? Forget about whatever Mohammed has taught them, you haven’t learnt anything from Ram and Krishna,” the man said in his provocative speech.
AFWA’s investigation found that the man is not a Muslim scholar. He is a Hindu preacher called Acharya Prashant Sharma who regularly opines on Hindu issues through videos on social media.
The viral posts have been archived here and here.
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AFWA PROBE
First, we noticed that few people commented under the posts that the man is not a Muslim scholar, rather he’s Hindu and called Acharya Prashant Sharma. Subsequently, we searched the internet and found the video from which the viral clip was excerpted. It was shared by Sharma’s Twitter account on June 30.
The caption of the tweet said, “They have learnt to terrorise from the Quran, what have you learnt from the Vedas? Don't be afraid to fight.” The tweet also contained hashtags like “Udaipur” and “Justice For Kanhaiya Lal”.
A YouTube link mentioned in the tweet led us to a YouTube channel called “Darshnik Vichar”
The 12-minute-long YouTube video was titled, “What is the reason behind the murder of Udaipur’s Kanhaiya Lal, Why was Kanhaiya Lal murdered - Acharya Prashant.” The section seen in the viral video begins around the 1.50-minute mark.
The channel’s description states its aims as the propagation of Vedic philosophy, adding in Hindi that, “As long as we live, we will strive to obliterate ideas like anti-national forces, corruption, hypocrisy, superstition, casteism, Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism from this land.”
We have found that aside from the YouTube channel and the Twitter account, Sharma is also active on Facebook, Instagram and Telegram.
AFWA contacted Sharma, a resident of Morena, Madhya Pradesh, who confirmed that it was him in the video. “It is my video. I had posted a small chunk from the longer video on Twitter and that has become viral. Now people from WhatsApp university are sharing it as a remark from a Muslim scholar,” Sharma said.
Thus, we concluded that this provocative speech was delivered by a Hindu preacher and not a Muslim scholar.
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