india

Updated: May 29, 2018 19:15 IST

A video of a turbaned man with a white beard waking up people for Sehri, the pre-dawn meal during the fasting month of Ramzan, was taken to be of a Sikh in Tral in Kashmir Valley but it appears to be a scene from Lahore in Pakistan.

A grainy 21-second video had surfaced on social media here yesterday showing the man beating drums in the middle of the night to wake up Muslims for Sehri.

The video was initially posted on Twitter by a PDP sympathiser under the handle Shah Imtizaj (@imtizaj_shah) and was retweeted by, among others, a senior minister in the Mehbooba Mufti led government.

The video was viewed several thousands times on Facebook and widely circulated on other social media platforms as well.

However, netizens were quick to catch on and today pointed out that the video was from the Pakistan Punjab.

The video has now made it to YouTube and can be searched as “Sikh man waking up Muslims for Sehri”. The original video, it appears, was posted on the same platform a week ago under the title “Sehri time doll (drum) in Pakistan”.

Businessman Adil Ahmed, who is based in Srinagar and follows social media closely, claimed, “This video is a clip from Pakistan not Tral.”

‘Seharkhwaan’ is the term used for the drum beaters who go around a locality to wake up its residents for the pre-dawn meal before the start of the dawn-to-dusk fast during Ramzan.

This task is normally taken up by one of the Muslims from the locality. Members from the minority community taking on the job is rare but not new.

Sikhs in Tral area have been actively participating in the joys and sorrows of their Muslim neighbours, residents said.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)