A video filmed in Turkey in 2020 has resurfaced in Hindu-majority India ahead of the April 2024 election with a false claim it showed a Muslim man “contaminating a tub of milk” by bathing in it. The original video was shot in a dairy plant in Turkey. Turkish media reported the man — along with the person who uploaded the clip — were arrested over the video, but were later acquitted after a court was told the tub was filled with a mix of water and milk residue, not milk.<\/h3>\n
“In Kerala… Look at the action of this jihadi. Bathing in a tub of milk, spitting and urinating in it before selling the same milk to Hindus,” read the Hindi-language caption of a Facebook post shared here<\/a> on April 15, 2024.<\/p>\n “Find out if milk companies like Amul, Mother Dairy have employed jihadi employees. If yes, then it’s clear that you are drinking the same type of milk.”<\/p>\n English-language text overlaid on the video read: “Muslim man takes bath in milk. He wants to make it Halal. Kerala.”<\/p>\n A voice-over in the Malayalam language could also be heard saying the video showed “an employee taking a bath inside a tank filled with milk in a dairy plant”.<\/p>\n “After the video went viral on social media, both the person taking the bath and the one recording got arrested,” the voice-over went on to say. “As a consequence, the dairy unit was temporarily closed.”<\/p>\n The video showed a man sitting in a tub filled with a white liquid.<\/p>\n “Jihad” is frequently translated as holy war, but Hindu hardliners in India use the word as a pejorative term for Muslims.<\/p>\n The false claim surfaced ahead of general elections in India, where voting began on April 19 and would last for six weeks. Analysts have\u00a0expected<\/a> Prime Minister Narendra Modi to triumph against a fractious alliance of more than two dozen parties that have yet to name a candidate for prime minister.<\/p>\n Muslims have often been the subject of false claims in Hindu-majority India. AFP\u00a0reported <\/a>much content was staged to gain views and income from platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.<\/p>\n The video was shared with the false claim elsewhere on Facebook here<\/a> and\u00a0here<\/a>, and on social media platform X here<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, the video was filmed in Turkey in 2020. Turkish media reported the man — along with the person who uploaded the video — were arrested for allegedly spoiling milk on purpose, but were later acquitted after a court was told the liquid in the tub was not milk.<\/p>\n A keyword search on Google found the same video\u00a0published<\/a> by Turkish news organisation Hurriyet Daily News on November 6, 2020 (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n The English-language report was titled: “Worker’s milk bath causes a dairy plant to close down.”<\/p>\n Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in the false post (left) and the footage uploaded on the news outlet’s website (right):<\/p>\nVideo from Turkey<\/strong><\/h3>\n