Fact Check: Owaisi Did Not Say 25 Cr Indian Muslims Will Join Pakistan Army If India Goes To War With Pakistan

A viral claim that AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi said Indian Muslims would join Pakistan army if there is an India-Pakistan war is false. Owaisi denied making such comments and pursued legal action.

The screenshot of a tweet posting a purported news report claiming AIMIM MP AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi said Indian Muslims would join Pakistan army in the event of an India-Pakistan war.

Fact Check: A news report purported to have been published in 2014 is being shared on social media with the claim that AIMIM party leader and four-term Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi said “If India goes to war with Pakistan, then 25 crore Indian Muslims will join Pakistan army”. Let’s verify the claim (here, here and here) made in the post. 

The archived post can be seen here.

Claim

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Asaduddin Owaisi said, “If India goes to war with Pakistan, then 25 crore Indian Muslims will join the Pakistan army.”

 

Fact

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No reputed news magazine or media outlet reported the alleged comments made in the post. Asaduddin refuted these statements attributed to him. In an interview in 2015, he mentioned initiating legal proceedings against the news agency and noted that some organizations had apologized for making such baseless remarks. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.

 

On performing a relevant keyword search regarding the viral claim, we discovered an article from Kashmir Observer in 2014 attributing the statement “If India goes to war with Pakistan, then 25 crore Indian Muslims will join the Pakistan army” to Asaduddin. If Asaduddin had made such comments, they would have been widely covered by leading newspapers and media outlets nationwide. However, no such reports were found.

Further, we found that Asaduddin himself posted a tweet (here, here and here) denying these comments and that he took legal action against the news agency.

My lawyer will send legal notice t Jammu observer if they apologise fine if nt then will file crim defamation against them will pursue it

— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) September 2, 2014

Subsequent research led us to Asaduddin’s interview with Headlines Today in 2015. Asaduddin refuted the alleged statements attributed to him. He mentioned initiating legal proceedings against the news agency and that some organizations had apologized for making such baseless remarks. Factly previously debunked this viral post in 2019, and it has resurfaced once more ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

To sum up, Asaduddin Owaisi did not say that “If India engages in war with Pakistan, 25 crore Indian Muslims will join the Pakistan army”.

This story was originally published by Factly.in, as part of the Shakti Collective. Except for the headline, excerpt and opening introduction para, this story has not been edited by ABPLIVE staff.