Staged video falsely claims police torture Muslims in India
A video recently posted on Facebook claims that police in India are entering the homes of Muslim youths and beating and harassing them. However, Dismislab’s fact-check has found that the circulating video is not footage of a real incident, but rather a staged video created by a content creator.
The video was posted on September 19 from a Facebook page named “MD Asadul 02.” The 34-second video is divided into two parts. In one part, two police officers are seen beating a young man wearing a yellow T-shirt and a cap inside a room. Meanwhile, the person who posted the video is speaking in it himself. In one segment, he says, “Look at how much these atheist sons of atheists in India are oppressing my Muslim brothers! Our Muslim brothers are praying inside their homes, and they are entering those very homes and beating them, but our Allah forgives but does not let them go.” (verbatim) In the caption, the user wrote: “Muslims are not finding peace praying at home in India.”
As of the publication of this report, the video had been viewed more than 12,000 times and shared more than 500 times.
To verify its authenticity, a reverse search was conducted using several keyframes of the video, which led to an Instagram account named Ashu Kharb. The recently circulated video was found to have been posted from this account on August 30 of this year. The post used hashtags such as “digital creator,” “reel,” “trending now,” “shorts,” and others. The scenes, events, individuals, and their clothing in the 22-second video completely match the circulating video.
Upon analyzing the Instagram account, Dismislab found that the channel publishes videos on various events almost regularly. The same individuals, wearing identical clothing, can also be seen acting in multiple other videos (1, 2, 3). The introduction on this Instagram account reveals that it belongs to a content creator from India. In the account’s bio, this individual describes these videos as content created for entertainment purposes.
For further verification, Dismislab also reviewed his Facebook page and YouTube channel. There too, it was found that, wearing police uniforms, they act out different characters in multiple videos. On the Facebook page, Ashu Kharb is described as a Dwarka-based content creator. In addition, the descriptions of the social media accounts he runs state that all the videos posted from these accounts are made by his team and are published solely for entertainment purposes.
In other words, the video circulated with the claim that a Muslim youth was tortured by several police officers in India is not footage of a real event. It is a scene from a staged video created by an Indian content creator, made for entertainment purposes.
