2022 video of two burqa-clad women casting fake votes is falsely linked to the 2024 election!
Claim
Women caught doing fake voting under the garb of a Burqa, the reason why the opposition is asking forces to not check identities removing burqa
Rating
Explanation
India’s general elections, which started yesterday will run through June 1, 2024, to choose the 543 members of the 18th Lok Sabha. There will be seven election phases, and the results will be declared on June 4, 2024.
In this case, a 33-second video depicts police officers striking a woman wearing a burqa. In the meantime, we watch a second woman, dressed in a brown burqa, arguing with the police officers. This post is shared stating, “Women caught doing fake voting under the garb of Burqa, the reason why the opposition is asking forces to not check identities removing burqa.” You can view similar claim posts here and here.
Women caught doing fake voting under the garb of Burqa, reason why opposition is asking forces to not check identities removing burqa
pic.twitter.com/AedwgtAgT3— Baba Banaras™ (@RealBababanaras) April 19, 2024
What’s the truth?
Our investigation began with the viral video’s keyframes, which directed us to the same video on the X handle dated February 15, 2022. This post was captioned as “Attempt of bogus voting by Burqa clad women in Rampur east, beaten and arrested by Uttam Police from Uttar Pradesh.” This implies that the video is old.
Using that as a cue, we conducted additional research and discovered a two-year-old article published in the Dainik Bhaskar. The article was titled “Burqa controversy in UP voting: BJP’s allegation – fake voting taking place under the cover of burqa; 2 women arrested in Rampur after complaint.”
The article added that the burqa controversy broke out during the second round of voting in Uttar Pradesh. Two women were detained in Rampur for voting while wearing a burqa. They were both donning burqas. The BJP had already complained in writing before this incident about fraudulent voting under the cover of a burqa to the Chief Electoral Officer in Lucknow.
Ravindra Kumar, the district election officer, cautioned others against doing this since poll workers are trained and cannot conduct fake votes. The two women who were apprehended are named Muskaan and Rani.
With the help of all this information, it is evident that the widely circulated claim about the two women in burqas and the policewomen is from 2022 and not the current 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Conclusion:
We therefore conclude that the widely shared video, which purports to show women cast fictitious ballots while wearing a burqa in the 2024 election is false and misleading. The widely shared video actually documents an incident that occurred during the 2022 elections in Uttar Pradesh.
