Shah Rukh Khan’s IPL team, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), signed Bangladeshi fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman for the 2026 season, triggering a major political controversy in India. Amid rising tensions over attacks on minorities in Bangladesh, many critics targeted Shah Rukh Khan, accusing him of acting against national sentiment (here, here and here). In this context, a video of Shah Rukh Khan is circulating on social media claiming that he is defending Mustafizur Rahman’s inclusion in the team, telling critics to “stop barking,” while strongly criticising industrialist Gautam Adani and what he describes as “Hindu–Muslim politics.” The video also alleges that he referred to Adani supplying electricity to Bangladesh without opposition and asserted that Mustafizur Rahman will definitely play for KKR. Let’s find the truth behind this video.
Claim: The viral video claims Shah Rukh Khan defended Mustafizur Rahman’s inclusion in KKR while criticising Gautam Adani and “Hindu–Muslim politics.”
Fact: The video is manipulated using a clip from Shah Rukh Khan’s 2014 talk at a Google interaction with Sundar Pichai, and the audio has been altered using deepfake technology. Shah Rukh Khan did not make any such statement about Mustafizur Rahman, Gautam Adani, or related political issues. Hence the claim is FALSE.
To verify the claim, we conducted a reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the viral video. This led us to a video uploaded on 02 October 2014, on the official Talks at Google YouTube channel. The footage shows Shah Rukh Khan participating in a fireside chat with Google CEO Sundar Pichai at the Googleplex in California. According to the video description, the interaction was part of a promotional event for Shah Rukh Khan’s film Happy New Year. The outfit worn by Shah Rukh Khan and the background seen in the original video match those in the viral clip, confirming that the footage is from this event.
We then reviewed the complete 37-minute video of Shah Rukh Khan’s interaction with Sundar Pichai and found no reference to Mustafizur Rahman, Gautam Adani, Bangladesh, or any related political issues at any point. This clearly indicates that the viral clip has been taken out of context and altered. We also found reports corroborating this finding.
Further examination of the viral video revealed noticeable discrepancies in the audio. Shah Rukh Khan’s voice seemed altered compared to the original footage, and the lip-sync does not match the spoken words. We analysed the audio using the Hiya deepfake audio detection tool, which flagged the clip as a deepfake.
Additionally, a keyword search to check whether Shah Rukh Khan had made such statements returned no credible results. These findings confirm that the viral video is manipulated and falsely attributed to Shah Rukh Khan.
To sum up, this video of Shah Rukh Khan allegedly commenting on the KKR–Mustafizur Rahman controversy is a deepfake.
