No, the Kerala man in this video is not feeding ‘meat’ to the elephant - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
April 27, 2022
A video through a post is being widely shared on social media claiming that a Kerala Muslim was feeding meat to an elephant. Let us fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video showing a Kerala Muslim feeding meat to an elephant.
Fact: The person in the video is not trying to feed meat but was feeding coconut to the elephant. The man in the video is Nabeel Kunhappu. When Nabeel first fed the elephant a coconut, it did not respond violently. Seeing this, his son too came forward to feed the elephant coconut for the second time, but this time the elephant attacked them. This viral video was taken when the elephant attacked them while they were feeding coconut for the second time. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
When reverse image search is done on the screenshots of the video, an article with similar visuals was found. The man in the video was identified as Nabeel, who, along with his son, was trying to feed the elephant near Thrikkalayoor temple in Malappuram, Kerala. According to the article, Nabeel first fed the elephant a coconut. Looking at it, his son became interested to feed the elephant. However, when the father and son went towards the elephant to feed coconut, the elephant tried to grab the son, but they escaped, as can be seen in the video. According to the article, the video is from late 2021.
When we searched on Google about Nabeel, we found a clarification video by him on Facebook. He stated quite clearly that they were only trying to feed coconut to the elephant before it attacked them. When the video went viral on social media, it was reported that the boy and his father escaped without any injuries. It was nowhere reported that the Kerala man tried to feed meat to the elephant. Elephants do not eat meat, they are herbivores.
To sum it up, the Kerala man who was attacked by an elephant in this video was not feeding ‘meat’ to the elephant.