Indian Home Minister's old remark about Mukhtar Ansari shared with misleading claim

What is the claim?

A video of Union Home Minister Amit Shah is being shared with a claim that he admitted to "killing" Indian gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari at a public rally. Ansari reportedly died of a cardiac arrest on March 28 in Uttar Pradesh's Banda jail.  

In the 57-second long video, Shah can be heard saying in Hindi, "The biggest thing we have done is that we have freed ourselves from the NIZAM... 'N' in NIZAM means the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got rid of Naseemuddin Siddiqui. 'I' means the Bharatiya Janata Party gave freedom from Imran Masood." He goes on to takes the names of Azam Khan, Atiq Ahmed and Mukhtar Ansari, and says that if the SP-BSP (Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party) alliance comes back, then UP will be ruled by NIZAM again.

Several users posted the video on X (formerly Twitter). An archived version of the post can be viewed here.

Screenshots of the viral posts. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the claim is misleading. An old video of Amit Shah talking about defeating Opposition leaders, including Mukhtar Ansari, was shared without context. 

How did we find the truth?

We conducted a reverse image search on the keyframes of the viral clip and found that the video actually dates back to April 10, 2019, before the 16th Lok Sabha elections. It was published from the official Bharatiya Janata Party YouTube channel with the title, ‘BJP has freed UP from Nizaam: Shri Amit Shah, Kasganj.’ The YouTube video is also 57-second-long and was widely shared at the time.

We also found a longer version of the video on party's YouTube channel uploaded on the same date. 

The viral video clip runs from the 19:30 mark to 20:27 timeframe of the 34:34-minute-long original speech. In the speech, Shah mentions that BJP’s biggest achievement is gaining freedom from NIZAM, which stands for Opposition leaders Naseemuddin Siddiqui, Imran Masood, Azam Khan, Atiq Ahmed, and Mukhtar Ansari. While Siddiqui and Masood are members of the Indian National Congress, Khan and Ahmed contested elections on Samajwadi Party (SP) tickets.

Ansari, a five-time Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Mau Sadar in Uttar Pradesh, was initially a part of the BSP. He contested from the seat twice as an independent candidate and once under the banner of his own party. However, he returned to the BSP in 2017.  

Shah addressed another rally on April 10, 2019, in Firozabad during the election campaign. He mentioned NIZAM in that rally as well and said, “Among all the works, getting rid of NIZAM was the most significant achievement that the BJP government has accomplished since its inception in the state.” 

Shah had further stated in Firozabad, “Either they have been sent to jail, or these men have left Uttar Pradesh. If the SP-BSP alliance came to power, then Nasimuddin Siddiqui, Imran Masood, Azam Khan, Atique Ahmed, and Mukhtar Ansari would again rule the state, and riots would return."

Of the said ‘NIZAM’ leaders, Atiq Ahmed was killed in 2023 when the police were taking him to hospital from jail, while Ansari breathed his last after spending nearly 19 years in different jails in North India.

The verdict

An old video of Amit Shah slamming SP-BSP leaders from UP was shared to claim that he admitted to the killing of Mukhtar Ansari. The video dates back to 2019, long before Ansari’s death. It is clear that the Union Minister was referring to the particular persons being sent to jail or leaving Uttar Pradesh after BJP came to power in the state in 2017. Therefore, we have marked this claim as misleading.