Old and edited videos of Virat Kohli are being shared as his condemnation of the Kolkata rape case incident
Videos (here and here) of cricketer Virat Kohli speaking about the recent Kolkata rape case are circulating widely on social media (here, here, here and here). In one video, Kohli condemned the rape case, while in another, he calls for a death sentence for the rapist. Let’s find the authenticity of these videos through this article.
Claim: Videos of Virat Kohli condemning the Kolkata rape case incident.
Fact: One of the viral videos actually dates back to 06 January 2017, when Virat Kohli expressed his anguish over the Bangalore mass molestation incident on 2017 New Year’s Eve. The second video features clips from a Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) podcast published on 26 February 2022, on their official YouTube channel. The audio of this podcast is manipulated to show as though Virat Kholi demanded death sentence to the rapist. We found no official statement from Virat Kohli regarding the Kolkata rape case. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
A reverse image search of the keyframes taken from the first video led us to the original video of Virat Kohli which he posted after the mass molestation incident in Bengaluru on New Year’s Eve in 2017 (here and here). On 06 January 2017, Virat Kohli expressed his anguish over the incident by taking to the X platform (formerly Twitter). He condemned both the perpetrators and those who witnessed the incident without taking action. “To see something like that happening to the girls and for people to watch and not do anything about it is a cowardly act,” he said.
A reverse image search of the keyframes taken from the second video led us to Virat Kohli’s interview with Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on their official YouTube channel, published on 26 February 2022. At 6.52 minutes, the audio of this podcast is edited to show Virat Kohli demanding a death sentence for the culprits in the Kolkata rape case incident. We did not find any official statement from Virat Kohli regarding the Kolkata rape case.
To sum up, old and edited videos of Virat Kohli are being shared as him condemning the Kolkata rape case incident.