A video from July 2021 is being shared widely by Hindu right-wing handles on social media as a triumph for Kashmiri Pandits after article-370 abrogation in August 2019.
In the video a man can be heard stopping a group from slaughtering cows in an illegal slaughterhouse.
Speaking in Kashmiri, the man says: “I will see how you will slaughter 20-22 cows, Molvi Sahab is this slaughterhouse? I am harmed by this.” In the 2-minute video, which has been viewed by at least 3 million people and shared over 27 thousand times from the RSS Fan club page on Facebook, the man continues: “You will slaughter so many cows, what am I supposed to do with the stinky smell and the blood. This time I will see how you will do it, don’t dig any hole here, I am telling you.”
The video has now been shared by Hindu groups who claim that it is an impact of abrogation of article-370 and 35-A. Many other pages, which have more than million followers on social media, have made similar claims that the person behind the video is a Kashmiri pandit and he is emboldened by the scrapping of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
One Kashmiri Pandit stands strong against Muslim butchers & stops Cow Slaughter in Kashmir. All Hindus must support this unidentified Pandit by sharing the video, hats off to this one man to fight for his belief. That’s the changed face of Kashmir thanks to Modi Ji & Amit Ji🙏🏾🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/khcGjlBjRy
— Eagle Eye (@SortedEagle) September 15, 2021
However, The Kashmir Walla reached out to the person in the video and it turned out that he is a Kashmiri Muslim from Srinagar.
While talking to The Kashmir Walla, Arif Jan, a resident of Srinagar, said that he had shot the video on the day of Eid-ul-Adha “I was disturbed by the stinky smell of cow leftovers and that I had asked the Darul Uloom people to not do it this time, the matter has been solved by the Mohalla committee long ago,” he said. “This video is two months old I don’t know why it is being shared now,” Jan said of the video which is viral now.
He further said, “We have a common wall with the darul uloom, they dig a hole there, I have been telling them for three years to not do near my kitchen wall, I did not have any issue with what they are slaughtering, let them sacrifice anything.”
Jan said that he was disturbed by the people using it as a propaganda video, “The issue was solved on the same day by mosque committee, please tell people I am not against animal sacrifice. Please understand that 20 animals are being sacrificed, and I did not have issues with slaughter, but with the animal stink.”
