Staged video of a man refusing to marry for failure to meet dowry demand is shared as a real incident - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
March 11, 2022
A social media post accompanying a video, wherein a Bihari man threatens to call off the marriage if his demands for dowry were not met is going viral on social media. In this video, the groom can be heard saying that he is a government employee, and his father is a teacher. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of a groom in Bihar threatening to cancel the wedding if his demands for dowry were not met.
Fact: This is a staged video created with actors. The creators of the video clarified the same. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
A Facebook search with relevant keywords led us to the lengthier version of the viral video on a Facebook page called Divya Vikram. And the admin of the page identifies himself as a video creator in the bio section of the page. However, the page did not mention that this is a staged video.
There are many such videos on this page. In fact, there are a couple of other videos of the same couple featured in the viral video. One of the videos shows the same couple getting engaged in a garlanding ritual and the other video shows the man in a total drunken state in his own wedding.
However, these are staged videos. In their correspondence with Altnews, a fact-checking agency, the admin of the above-mentioned Facebook page clarified that the viral video of a man demanding dowry is a staged drama. He further informed that the couple seen in the viral video are actors and are married to each other in real life.
Even in our correspondence with the admin of the ‘Divya Vikram’ Facebook page, they clarified that the viral video is actually staged drama and not a real incident. He further said that they created the video for the purpose of social awareness.
Earlier, multiple news agencies have reported the same viral video as a real incident, and this ensured its virality. Later on, a few news agencies clarified that it is a scripted video following fact-checks debunking the claim.
To sum it up, a staged video of a man refusing to marry if his demands for dowry were not met is shared as a real incident.