Khalistan Flag Hoisted At Red Fort? A FactCheck

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Multiple social media posts claiming protesting farmers removed the Indian tricolour at the Red Fort and replaced it with a flag of Khalistan, are false. BOOM found that protesters hoisted the Nishan Sahib, the Sikh religious flag and the flag of the Kisan Mazdoor Ekta, a farmers union collective on an empty flag pole and that the Indian flag elevated at the centre of the monument was untouched.

The farmers protest took a violent turn on January 26, Republic Day, when farmers participating in Kisan Tractor Rally clashed with the police at multiple locations in Delhi while a large group of protesters breached a section of the iconic Red Fort.

Khalistani Flag hoisted on Red Fort.. BlACK DAY FOR INDIA .. https://t.co/Rz5peVQrHC — Sumit Kadel (@SumitkadeI) January 26, 2021

Peaceful farmers hoisting/waving the Khalistan flag at Red Fort on Republic Day. I’m speechless. https://t.co/XDX5ZyXmee — Ishita Yadav (@IshitaYadav) January 26, 2021

Indian Flag Removed Flag of Khalistan is waving on Red Fort.

Historic Moments.#IndianRepublicBlackDay pic.twitter.com/HWsrlDvVDQ — Pakistan First (@APMLOfficial_) January 26, 2021

Some posts claimed that the protesting farmers removed the Indian tricolour from the flag pole to hoist their flag.

Shameful. 😡

No one has the right to remove the Indian flag from Red fort that too on #RepublicDay.

Your move, @narendramodi. 🖐 #दिल्ली_पुलिस_लठ_बजाओ

pic.twitter.com/AfM9NKMUHR — Abhishek Mudgal (@AbhishekMudgal_) January 26, 2021

FACT CHECK

BOOM found that both the claims are false. Visual footage shows that the farmers did not remove the Indian tricolour and nor did they hoist the Khalistan flag but the Sikh relgious flag - the Nishan Sahib and the flag of the Kisan Ekta Mazdoor, a farmers union.

CLAIM 1 - FARMERS REMOVED INDIAN TRICOLOUR

We scanned through Facebook live videos uploaded by some of the protesting farmers and found that the flag pole where the farmers hoisted the flags did not have the Indian tricolour on it.

A Facebook live shows farmers arriving at the Red Fort in their tractors and singing and dancing and raising slogans. The video shot from the outer wall of the Red Fort shows the whole of the fort in the background with the flag pole where the farmers later hoisted the flag, clearly visible. The flag pole is empty with the Indian tricolour visible only in the centre behind the small white domes forming the front facade of the Red Fort and nowhere else. The two smaller red domes on the side also don’t have a flag hoisted on them.

Below is a screenshot from the same video -

One can watch the full video here where in all scenes the pole does not have a flag hoisted on it.

We further found another Facebook live which shows security personnel standing right below the flag pole observing the gathering farmers. At the 3.34 second counter one can see the security personnel at the empty flag post with farmers standing below the red fort. At the 11.03 counter, the farmers start running and reach the flag pole with one of them holding a yellow triangular flag. In both the scenes, the pole does not have a flag clearly showing that the farmers did not remove the Indian tricolour to hoist the flag.

At the 13.22 mark the first protesting farmer climbs up the flag pole with a flag in an attempt to hoist it and it is clearly seen that there is no flag on it. This is followed by a second failed attempt at 16.45 by two protesters to hoist the flag, which is still empty. Finally at the 23.42 mark one can see a man hoist an orange/yellow flag on the pole and the crowd cheering in response.

We marked the three sequences below to show that the flag pole was empty the whole time.

The same video can be watched below

Even in the footage tweeted by wire agency ANI, the flag pole does not have the Indian tricolour.

#WATCH A protestor hoists a flag from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi#FarmLaws #RepublicDay pic.twitter.com/Mn6oeGLrxJ — ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2021

We further contacted Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) official who confirmed that the flag pole did not have the Indian tricolour hoisted on it for the occasion of Republic Day. The ASI official said, “The big flag at the Red Fort is the one hoisted everyday. Apart from that the smaller white domes that you see have small Indian flags hoisted on the occasion of Independence Day. The said flag pole where the farmers hoisted their flag did not have the Indian tricolour on it.” The official not wanting to be named condoned the act by the protesting farmers and said, “While them entering the area like this is illegal, they did not remove any flag from the premises,” he said.

CLAIM 2 - FARMERS HOISTED THE KHALISTANI FLAG?

BOOM found that the protesters hoisted the Sikh religious flag called Nishan Sahib and later the flag of Kisaan Mazdoor Ekta, a farmers union.

We found a tweet by ANI which showed both the hoisted flags and compared each of them to the official flag of the Khalistan movement and found that both do not match it.

We compared the orange triangular flag visible hoisted at the Red Fort first with the Nishan Sahib and then with a Khalistan flag found on Getty images. The orange flag hoisted today looks similar in shape and colour to the Sikh relgious flag also called the Nishan Sahib. The Khalistan flag seen in Getty Images is the one used by several Sikh seperatist groups and is square and yellow in colour with the Khanda visible in the center and the words, ‘Khalistan’ written below it.

What is the Nishan Sahib?

The Nishan Sahib is a religious flag used by the Sikh community and usually hoisted outside a gurdwara. Sikh religious blogs desrcibe it as a flag holding great significance for the community and the same is mounted on a steel pole, which is also covered with a saffron-coloured cloth.

THE SECOND FLAG

BOOM reached out to farmer unions protesting in Delhi who said that the second flag is the Kisan Mazdoor Ekta’s flag. The Kisan Mazdoor Ekta is the collective formed by many of the protesting farmer unions. We could not find any verified Facebook page or Twitter handle for the union to compare but found a news story published on January 25, 2021 in the Indian Express about several businessmen in Punjab hoisting the farmer union flags. The story carried an image of a flag seller and some of the flags in the photo resembled the one hoisted at the Red Fort.

Further, Deep Sidhu, an actor turned farmer who was present at the Red Fort and is also said to have allegedly handed over the flag to be hoisted put out a video saying that India’s flag was not removed from the flagpole and they only hoisted the Kisan Mazdoor Ekta’s flag and the Nishan Sahib.

(Additional reporting by Anmol Alphonso)

Fact-Check: Flags Hoisted at Red Fort Neither Replaced Tricolour, Nor Promoted Khalistan

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As part of the protests against the Centre’s farm bills, farmers’ unions and the Delhi police had chalked out agreed-upon circular routes from Ghazipur, Singhu and Tikri borders for the Republic Day tractor parades.

It was decided that the protesters will enter Delhi but remain in areas near the border from the three entry points. Several protesting groups, however, veered off the course and were met with police lathicharge and tear gas shells. They entered the iconic Red Fort and hoisted flags from some domes and from a flagstaff, on the ramparts of the fort, used to unfurl the tricolour on Independence Day.

This sparked two widespread claims –

the protestors took down the Indian national flag, and
replaced the tricolour with the Khalistan flag.

Indian Flag Removed Flag of Khalistan is waving on Red Fort.

Historic Moments.#IndianRepublicBlackDaypic.twitter.com/HWsrlDvVDQ — Pakistan First (@APMLOfficial_) January 26, 2021

“What point are these farmers trying to make by replacing the tricolour with their religious flag?” questioned Sonam Mahajan.

Editor-in-chief of Times Now Rahul Shivshankar also claimed that the tricolour was replaced. But he added that the one hoisted was a flag of farmers’ union or religious sect.

Disquieting assault on our most visible national symbol. That too on #RepublicDay. Our Tricolour replaced at iconic flagpole at #RedFort. Was this protest always about undermining our State? | #RDaySpiritShamed pic.twitter.com/Bfp1psRsAJ — Rahul Shivshankar (@RShivshankar) January 26, 2021

That the flag unfurled from the mast pole was the Khalistan flag is massively viral on social media. Among those who amplified the claim were BJP Delhi spokesperson Harish Khurana, parliamentary secretary of Varun Gandhi, Ishita Yadav, and BJP supporters Divya Kumar Soti, Vikrant Kumar, Sumit Kadel, Sumit Kadel, Sumeet Thakkar, Anurag Dixit and Shefali Vaidya.

Right-wing propaganda website OpIndia also wrote in an article that protesters unfurled Khalistan flag from the Red Fort.

Other pro-BJP propaganda handles @NindaTurtles, @ExSecular and @IamMayank_ made similar tweets.

Fact-check

This fact-check has been divided into two sections that debunk both claims separately.

Indian flag was not replaced or taken down

Protesters hoisted a flag from an empty pole mast. They neither took down the Indian flag nor replaced it with a flag of Khalistan. There are several videos that confirm the same. In the video below, the tricolour can be seen atop Lahore gate (entrance to the Red Fort) as the protestor climbs the empty flagpost.

#WATCH A protestor hoists a flag from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi#FarmLaws #RepublicDay pic.twitter.com/Mn6oeGLrxJ — ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2021

The Indian flag can be spotted in several pictures.

Red Fort is fully occupied by protestors now. The police is now climbing to remove the flag that was hoisted by the protesters. (Express vide by Praveen Khanna) pic.twitter.com/yeCxPNjLvy — The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) January 26, 2021

Flags were also put up on domes from the fort.

The flag hoisted by protesters is not the Khalistan flag

The flags hoisted by the protesting farmers are the Nishan Sahib or Sikh religious flags.

“Whether yellow or saffron, triangular flags with the Khanda – two swords – are Sikh flags. They are not Khalistan flags,” said Amandeep Sandhu, author of Panjab: Journeys Through Fault Lines.

He further added, “When a flag is hoisted as a symbol of regime change, the previous flag is brought down and the new flag is unfurled. In this case, the tricolour, the flag of India, continues to be hoisted. It has not been touched. The hoisting of the Sikh flag means that the people of the nation want to assert their identity as well. They want to be counted. They want the rulers of the nation to not take them for granted.”

Journalist Hartosh Singh Bal also tweeted that the flags unfurled were Sikh religious flags, not Khalistan flag.

btw the right wing has the effrontery to raise this on a day the ram mandir is the UP govt’s r-day float. — Hartosh Singh Bal (@HartoshSinghBal) January 26, 2021

Sikh flags are also featured on the Punjab tableau during Republic Day parades. It was displayed this year as well.

The screenshot below is from Republic Day parade held last year.

The widespread claim that Khalistan flag was hoisted by protesters during the tractor rally in Delhi is false. Several others further suggested that Indian national flag was replaced when, in fact, the flagstaff was empty.

This article first appeared on AltNews. Read the original here.

Farmers’ protest: No, protestors did not replace tricolour with Khalistan flag at Red Fort

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As part of the protests against the centre’s farm bills, farmers’ unions and the Delhi police had chalked out agreed-upon circular routes from Ghazipur, Singhu and Tikri borders for the Republic Day tractor parades. It was decided that the protestors will enter Delhi but remain in areas near the border from the three entry points. Several protesting groups, however, veered off the course and were met with police lathicharge and tear gas shells. They entered the iconic Red Fort and hoisted flags from some domes and from a flagstaff, on the ramparts of the fort, used to unfurl the tricolour on Independence Day.

This sparked two widespread claims – 1) the protestors took down the Indian national flag and 2) replaced the tricolour with Khalistan flag.

Indian Flag Removed Flag of Khalistan is waving on Red Fort.

Historic Moments.#IndianRepublicBlackDaypic.twitter.com/HWsrlDvVDQ — Pakistan First (@APMLOfficial_) January 26, 2021

“What point are these farmers trying to make by replacing the tricolour with their religious flag?” questioned Sonam Mahajan.

Editor-in-chief of Times Now Rahul Shivshankar also claimed that the tricolour was replaced. But he added that the one hoisted was a flag of farmers’ union or religious sect.

Disquieting assault on our most visible national symbol. That too on #RepublicDay. Our Tricolour replaced at iconic flagpole at #RedFort. Was this protest always about undermining our State? | #RDaySpiritShamedpic.twitter.com/Bfp1psRsAJ — Rahul Shivshankar (@RShivshankar) January 26, 2021

That the flag unfurled from the mast pole was the Khalistan flag is massively viral on social media. Among those who amplified the claim were BJP Delhi spokesperson Harish Khurana, parliamentary secretary of Varun Gandhi Ishita Yadav and BJP supporters Divya Kumar Soti, Vikrant Kumar, Sumit Kadel, Sumit Kadel, Sumeet Thakkar, Anurag Dixit and Shefali Vaidya. Right-wing propaganda website OpIndia also wrote in an article that protestors unfurled Khalistan flag from the Red Fort.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Other pro-BJP propaganda handles @NindaTurtles, @ExSecular and @IamMayank_ made similar tweets.

Fact-check

This fact-check has been divided into two sections that debunk both claims separately.

Indian flag was not replaced or taken down

Protestors hoisted a flag from an empty pole mast. They neither took down the Indian flag nor replaced it with a flag of Khalistan. There are several videos that confirm the same. In the video below, the tricolour can be seen atop Lahore gate (entrance to the Red Fort) as the protestor climbs the empty flagpost.

#WATCH A protestor hoists a flag from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi#FarmLaws#RepublicDaypic.twitter.com/Mn6oeGLrxJ — ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2021

The Indian flag can be spotted in several pictures.

The Police did not succeed in removing the flag. More and more farmers are going up to prevent bringing down of flags. (Express photos by Abhinav Saha and Praveen Khanna) pic.twitter.com/p33UZO3AXk — The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) January 26, 2021

Flags were also put up on domes from the fort.

The flag hoisted by protestors is not the Khalistan flag

The flags hoisted by the protesting farmers are the Nishan Sahib or Sikh religious flags.

“Whether yellow or saffron, triangular flags with the Khanda – two swords – are Sikh flags. They are not Khalistan flags,” said Amandeep Sandhu, author of ‘Panjab: Journeys Through Fault Lines’ in conversation with Alt News.

Journalist Hartosh Singh Bal also tweeted that the flags unfurled were Sikh religious flags, not Khalistan flag.

with the tiranga visible the right wing ecosystem has picked on the nishan sahib that has also been held aloft.

they have termed the nishan sahib a khalistani flag. if that were so then every gurdwara would be khalistan, every sikh a khalistani. — Hartosh Singh Bal (@HartoshSinghBal) January 26, 2021

Sikh flags are also featured on the Punjab tableau during Republic Day parades. It was displayed this year as well.

The screenshot below is from Republic Day parade held last year.

The widespread claim that Khalistan flag was hoisted by protestors during the tractor rally in Delhi is false. Several others further suggested that Indian national flag was replaced when, in fact, the flagstaff was empty.

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