Several posts (here, here, & here) accompanying a video of a man wearing a skullcap removing a saffron flag while arguing with a woman are being widely shared across social media platforms with the claim that the video depicts a Muslim man removing and throwing the flag of Lord Sri Ram. In this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video depicting a Muslim man removing the flag of Lord Sri Ram.
Fact: The video is scripted and does not depict a real incident. It was uploaded by a video content creator page on Facebook called “Himanshu Jatav.” Furthermore, the man who ‘protects’ the woman in the viral video appears in almost all other videos released by this Facebook page. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To verify the authenticity of the viral video, we conducted a Google reverse image search using the keyframes from the video. This search led us to several posts (here, here, and here) on X (formerly Twitter), where users posted this video and referred to it as a scripted video. One user claimed that all the individuals in the video belong to the Hindu community, including the one wearing the Muslim skullcap. The user also identified one of them as ‘Hemraj Thakur,’ alleging that he is known for creating such scripted videos. Additionally, the user tagged the Uttar Pradesh police to take necessary action against ‘Hemraj Thakur’ and provided screenshots of his Facebook profile.
Taking a cue from this, we located the Facebook page of ‘Hemraj Thakur.’ It appears that he has changed his Facebook profile name, now going by the name “Himanshu Jatav.” According to his page description, he is a Delhi-based video creator. Upon examining the page, we found several staged videos. However, we did not find the viral video on his Facebook page. Nevertheless, we observed that the man who ‘protects’ the woman in the viral video appears in almost all videos. Additionally, he posted a clarification post stating that the videos were for entertainment purposes and that the characters were not real.
Some other videos of them can be found here, and here. This suggests that the viral video does not depict a real incident but rather a scripted one.
During this search, we also found an Instagram handle by the same user, namely, ‘Himanshu Jatav’. The user’s bio is described as an artist. Furthermore, we found many staged and prank videos on his Instagram page as well. Based on all this information, it is evident that the viral video is scripted.
To sum it up, a scripted video depicting a Muslim man removing a saffron flag belonging to Hindus is being shared as a real incident.
