Video of a Man Hacked to Death in Mexico Shared as RSS Worker 'Killed in Kerala'

The graphic clip is an old one from Oaxaca, Mexico and doesn't show RSS worker S Sajith's murder in Palakkad, Kerala

The video is from Oaxaca, Mexico and was taken in 2018.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

An extremely graphic video of a dismembered man dying on the ground is being shared on social media with a claim that it shows the murder of S Sanjith, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker, who was hacked to death in Kerala's Palakkad on 15 November 2021.

However, we found that the video has been on the internet since 2018 and is from Oaxaca, Mexico. As per reports, the man in the video was brutally tortured as members of a Mexican drug cartel wanted to extract information regarding the death of one Juanito Castellanos, and he did not provide any.

CLAIM

The video is being shared on Twitter and WhatsApp, with the Hindi text that reads "केरल में संघ के कार्यकर्ता की निर्मम हत्या"|

[Translation: RSS worker brutally murdered in Kerala]

(Warning: Due to the graphic nature of the visuals we have not added any link to the video.)

The video was shared on Twitter.

(Source: Twitter/Altered by The Quint)

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

Using InVID, a video verification tool, we divided the video in multiple keyframes and ran reverse image searches on a few of them. We noticed that the person speaking in the video was speaking a version of Spanish.

The search led us to the video uploaded to a gore website, which hosts many such videos. The video, titled 'Guy dismembered by cartel and left dying' was uploaded three years ago.

(Source: SeeGore/Altered by The Quint)

We looked at the page's source information and saw that the clip had been uploaded to the site in August 2018.

The video was uploaded to another gore website in the same time period. There, the video's description noted that the person recording the video was interrogating the dismembered man, asking him for information about who killed on Juanito Castellanos, before threatening a man named Giovanni with the same fate.

It further noted that "according to the narration, "the incident took place in Chahuites in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Taking these clues, we used relevant keywords and looked for reports on the brutal killing. The results led us to a report by Sin Embargo, an investigative journalism organisation in Mexico, which confirmed the incident and its location.

Another Spanish daily, VanGuardia carried the report along with a picture from the video.

The translated page confirmed that the location was Oaxaca.

(Source: SinEmbargo/Screenshot)

We also found a report on the incident on El Blog Del Narco, a blog which attempts to highlight the day-to-day cartel-related violence which is not reported by the mainstream media or the Mexican government. (Link here.)

WHO IS S SANJITH?

A worker of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) S Sanjith was hacked to death in Palakkad district in November last year. As per reports, he was killed in front of his wife in broad daylight while the two were travelling on his bike.

The BJP and Sangh Parivar had alleged that Sanjith was killed by activists of Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political offshoot of PFI.

As per The News Minute, the police has made several arrests including an office bearer of PFI.

Evidently, a graphic video from Oaxaca, Mexico that was taken in 2018 is being falsely shared on social media as one of the brutal killing of S Sanjith, an RSS worker from Kerala's Palakkad.

(With inputs from SM Hoax Slayer)

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