Claim
Two unrelated videos of iron nails found in medicinal capsules have been shared to misleadingly claim that they have been manufactured by a Bangladesh based pharmaceutical company owned by Muslims. The claim further states that the company, Eskayef Pharmaceuticals are planning a 'medicine jihad.' The video clip is being shared on facebook with a caption, “Manufactured by Eskayef pharmaceuticals based out of Bangladesh and owned by Muslims. This is termed as medicine jihad.” BOOM also received the video via its WhatsApp tipline for verification.
Fact
The viral clip clearly shows that the two videos are from different locations with the capsule packaging and the hands of the people dealing with them, both different. One of the videos has the name of the capsule on the package written in Urdu and in the other video one can hear the person opening the capsules as he speaks in Russian. We ran a search with Urdu and English keywords and found a longer and clearer clip on YouTube, uploaded on February 21, 2021. In this clip, we can see the name on the strip - Esoral. Further, upon zooming into the packaging, 'City Pharmaceutical Laboratories' can be seen with the address of the manufacturer as Karachi. We then ran a search for Esoral and found that it is a drug owned by Eskayef pharmaceuticals, a Bangladesh based drug manufacturer. The capsules seen in the viral video does not mention Eskayef anywhere. The same videos were earlier viral with claims that it is a new tactic by Muslims in India to kill Hindus. BOOM had earlier spoken to Eskayef who said, "We do not sell any products in India or Pakistan. No Indian agent is aligned with us and we do not export to either India or Pakistan." On looking at the Esoral tablet strip on the company website, we found that the packaging is different from the one in the viral video. A search for the same, showed that the company is based in Bosnia and Herzegovina.