Videos allegedly related to the tragic rape and murder of a trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata on 09 August 2024, have been widely circulated on social media (here, here, here, and here). The first video allegedly shows the victim’s final moments, recorded by herself while the second video purportedly depicts her body being transported on a stretcher and the hospital staff are seen lining the corridor with folded hands as the stretcher passes by. Let’s find out the truth behind both videos through this article.
Claim: Videos of Kolkata rape victim’s final moments, recorded by herself, and her dead body being transported in the hospital.
Fact: The woman in the first video is identified as Zeenat Rehman, an artist who shares her makeover videos on social media. According to the Kolkata Police, the actual victim’s body was found in a gruesome state at the hospital, making it unlikely that she recorded herself during or after the attack. Zeenat Rehman has no connection to the Kolkata rape case. The second video is an old clip from Visakhapatnam, showing Praveen Mehta, a Jalore resident now living in Visakhapatnam and running a cosmetics business. His son Vipin died in a road accident on 29 May 2024, and the family donated his organs. The hospital honoured Vipin with a ‘Guard of Honour.’ Both videos are unrelated to the Kolkata rape victim. Hence, the claims made in the posts are FALSE.
Video 1
A reverse image search of the keyframes taken from the first viral video led us to the Facebook post by Zeenat Rehman who posts her makeover videos in a Facebook group called Makeup Artists. When we checked this page, we noticed that in 2020, Zeenat shared a post on this page with make-up showing that she was injured. Apart from that, we found her YouTube channel. Looking at the videos and photos she has posted, we noticed similarities between Zeenat Rahman and the woman in the viral video (here and here ). A comparision of photos of the woman in the viral video and Zeenat can be seen below.
Further, according to the Kolkata Police, the woman’s body was discovered in a gruesome state on the hospital premises. Given the severity of her injuries and the circumstances surrounding her death, it is improbable that she recorded herself during or after the attack (here and here).
This confirmed that the woman seen in the viral video has no connection with the Kolkata rape case.
Video 2
A reverse image search of keyframes from the second viral video led us to reports from June 2024 (here and here) that featured the same clip. These reports described a man who donated his son’s organs after the son died in a road accident.
Upon further investigation, we discovered that Praveen Mehta, a resident of Jalore now living in Visakhapatnam with his family, runs a cosmetics business. His son Vipin was involved in a road accident on 29 May 2024, and later died from his injuries. After Vipin’s death, his parents chose to donate his organs. The hospital staff and doctors recognised their decision and honoured Vipin’s body with a ‘Guard of Honour.’
To sum up, unrelated, old videos of a makeup artist and a video from Visakhapatnam are falsely linked with the Kolkata rape case.
