Demand for the Khalistan Referendum is the current ongoing movement demanding a separate country from Punjab. This movement is carried out by the pro-Khalistani organisation Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), which organized a voting for the Khalistan Referendum in Canada on September 19, 2022, in which over 10,000 Sikhs participated and voted. The Separatist organisation is banned in India, yet they operate from Canada to carry out their cheap propaganda and are supported by the Pakistan Intelligence Agency ISI.
Many sleeper cells here help SJI propagate the Khalistan Referendum propaganda. Adhering to the propaganda, a viral video is circulating on social media in which it is alleged that Indian Army Lt. Gen. Manjinder Singh has demanded that voting in the Khalistan referendum should be permitted.
A YouTube channel named Lions of Punjab with 1.12k subscribers shared the video of Lt. Gen. Manjinder Singh with the aforementioned claim.
Apart from YouTube, the video is also going viral on Twitter. The Twitter handles named Varas Baghel and A Singh have shared the video on their respective Twitter accounts with a caption, “Khalistan Referendum Voting Should Be Allowed” – Indian Army Lt. Gen. Manjinder Singh, XVI Corps Jammu.”
Our Only Fact team decided to verify the video and fact check the claim.
Fact Check
In the first step of our research, using the keyword search “Lt. Gen. Manjinder Singh said Khalistan Referendum voting should be allowed,” we tried to get media reports. Because such a statement coming from Army personnel is a controversial issue, many media sources would have covered it. However, our team was unable to locate any media reports confirming the claims.
Further, after extracting the keyframes from the viral video and with the help of reverse image search, we came across a report by Rozana Spoksman dated November 12, 2022. We translated the report and found that it states that when Manjinder Singh was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, he visited his village, Marar, Batala (Gurdaspur), on this occasion and was warmly welcomed.
We discovered that the viral video was taken during his visit to the village in 2022. The video shows him speaking with the journalist. We took the Punjabi keywords from the Rozana Spokesman report, and with the help of a keyword search on YouTube, our team found the original video by Fastway News uploaded on November 22, 2022. Because the video was in Punjabi, we kept the caption on to see if Manjinder Singh really said that voting in the Khalistan Referendum should be allowed.
In the video, while talking to the journalist, Singh said that when his father admitted him to Sainik School Kapurthala, it was the turning point in his life. He excelled in his studies through hard effort and also rose to prominence in hockey. He never mentioned the term “Khalistan” once in the entire video. Instead, he spoke about his struggles that led to his current position as lieutenant general.
Source: Fastway News (YouTube)
The video that is going viral on social media with the claim that Manjinder Singh said Khalistan Referendum voting should be allowed has been digitally altered. Our experts evaluated the two videos and discovered that the viral video lacks sync. The fake audio is added to the video.
In the last step of our fact-checking process, the Only Fact team contacted a bilingual expert in Punjabi, who confirmed that the claim is fake and that the Lt. Gen. Manjinder Singh made no reference of the Khalistan Referendum.
| Claim | Lt. Gen. Manjinder Singh said voting for Khalistan Referendum should be allowed |
| Claimed by | Social media users |
| Fact Check | Fake |
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