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| - Fact Check: This video does not show Ayyappa devotees chanting Islamic prayers in Sabarimala
India Today Anti Fake News War Room has found the claim along with the video to be misleading. The video is not from Sabarimala.
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India Today Fact Check
This video was taken in 2017 during a special puja held in Andhra Pradesh ahead of Sabarimala pilgrimage. Also, in the complete version of the video, the man can be heard singing in praise of Lord Ayyappa and Vavar Swami.
A video of a man chanting Islamic prayers among a group of Hindu devotees is circulating on social media with the claim that these are visuals from the Sabarimala temple in Kerala. Several devotees also join the man in chanting the prayers.
The caption in Hindi along with the video translates to, “Do not press the button of the red symbol. See what’s happening in an Ayyappa temple. Are the priests and other temple committee members sleeping? Why isn’t anyone opposing this?”
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim along with the video to be misleading. The video is not from Sabarimala. Also, this is a cropped version, and in the original video, the man can be heard singing in praise of Lord Ayyappa and Vavar Swami. As per legend, Vavar Swami was a close associate of Lord Ayyappa.
AFWA probe
With the help of keyword search on Facebook and YouTube, we found longer versions of the same video uploaded by several users at least since 2017. In this longer version, we can hear the man singing in praise of both Lord Ayyappa and Vavar Swami in Telugu.
The same song and other similar ones in praise of Lord Ayyappa and Vavar have been sung by different Telugu devotional singers over the years.
According to the official website of Sabarimala temple, Vavar was a Muslim saint who became a devotee of Lord Ayyappa. There is a shrine dedicated to Vavar Swami at Sabarimala. There is also a Vavar Swami mosque at Erumeli next to the Sree Dharmasastha temple dedicated to Lord Ayyappa.
People of all religions are allowed to visit Sabarimala temple and devotees also go to Vavar Swami mosque as part of the pilgrimage.
With the help of keywords in Telugu and English, we then searched for the man singing in the video and found multiple videos of him on a YouTube channel called “N.balajiswami ayyappaswami bhajanalu”
While we could not find the viral video on this channel, we found another video of the same man singing the same prayer at a different location.
Taking a cue from the information available on this channel, we reached out to N Balaji for further details about the video. Speaking to AFWA, he confirmed that the man seen in the viral video is him. He added that the video is from a convention hall in Andhra Pradesh.
“This video is from 2017 when a special puja was held ahead of Sabarimala pilgrimage. I was invited to sing there. Since Vavar Swami and Lord Ayyappa are considered close associates, I sang this song. The video is from Chalasani Gardens, a function hall in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, and not the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple,” Balaji told AFWA.
We also found a better quality and longer version of the same video uploaded on YouTube in October 2017. The description here also says that the video is from “Chalasani Gardens”.
We then compared the viral video with images of Chalasani Gardens available on Google Maps. This comparison confirmed that the video is indeed from Chalasani Gardens in Andhra Pradesh, and not the Sabarimala temple.
Travancore Devaswom Board PRO Sunil Arumanoor also confirmed to AFWA that the viral claim is false.
Hence, it is clear that the video is not from the Sabarimala temple, and a cropped version of a longer video is circulating with a misleading narrative.
(With inputs from Sonali Khatta in New Delhi)
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