Footage of Prime Minister Narendra Modi boarding a helicopter to survey damage from a cyclone of India's West Bengal in which protesters purportedly chant chowkidar chor hai at him has gone viral on social media.
The slogan that translates to "the watchman is a thief", reverberates throughout the video.
The Express Tribune found the claim to be false as the video was doctored to add the anti-Modi chants.
The footage was shared hundreds of thousands of times on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube supposedly as evidence that the Indian premier was given a bad reception during his visit.
The video, that is 50 seconds long, shows the lifelong member of India's Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh walking alongside West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee.
The slogan was coined ahead of general elections 2019 by Rahul Gandhi, the former president of India’s main opposition Indian National Congress (INC) party, in response to Modi portraying himself as India’s watchman.
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The video is also shared alongside a similar claim on Facebook here and here.While it was also widely shared on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/Bilal02145575/status/12641955738397a94178
#ChowkidharChorHai : ke naare , Bengal daure ke dauraan. pic.twitter.com/xIFurlobHt
— Faijal (@Faijal_cocktail) May 23, 2020
A reverse Google image search using video keyframes extracted with InVID-WeVerify, a digital verification tool, found the video was doctored to include the protest audio.
The original footage was published here on May 22, 2020, on the Facebook page of the government-run regional news unit of All India Radio, Kolkata.
The video includes audio of people shouting religious slogans and “didi”, which means sister and is a term of endearment for Chief Minister Banerjee.
A further search found that the audio used in the misleading video shared on social media was taken from a YouTube video published in April 2019 by The Times of India, a major Indian daily newspaper.
The footage shows INC supporters protesting against Modi, chanting “chowkidar chor hai” at a public rally.
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