The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup is scheduled to take place in India from 05 October to 09 November 2023. Ahead of this event, the Pakistani cricket team landed in Hyderabad on 27 September 2023, for a warm-up match against New Zealand. In this context, a video in which a crowd is heard raising “Pakistan Murdabad” upon the Pakistani Cricket team’s arrival at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport is being widely shared on social media platforms. Let’s verify the authenticity of the video.
Claim: Video of Pakistani cricket team’s arrival at Hyderabad airport where a crowd is heard raising “Pakistan Murdabad” slogans.
Fact: The audio in the viral video has been manipulated. Neither the original video nor the live-streamed visuals recorded any distinct anti-Pakistani slogans at that time. Hence, the claim in the post is FALSE.
A reverse image search of the viral video led us to the earliest version of the same video. This video was uploaded on X (formerly Twitter) by the Cricket & Stuff page at 9:03 PM on 27 September 2023, shortly after the arrival of the flight carrying the Pakistani team.
However, upon comparing the two audios, we discovered that the original video does not contain any distinct sounds of the crowd chanting ‘Pakistan Murdabad’, unlike the viral video.
To further verify the claim, we investigated the live stream visuals (here & here) reported by multiple media outlets at the time. Even in this footage, there’s no evidence of the crowd distinctly raising anti-Pakistani slogans, unlike the viral video. In addition, we found that the audio in the viral video is old and was taken from a Facebook video uploaded in August 2022. Comparing the audio in the viral video with that from the 2022 video confirms that the audio in the viral video has been altered with it.
Although we couldn’t independently verify if any anti/pro-Pakistani slogans were raised against the Pakistan team during this visit at any other point in time, it’s clear that the audio in this specific video clip was manipulated.
To sum it up, a video with altered audio is being circulated, falsely claiming that the crowd distinctly chanted ‘Pakistan Murdabad’ upon the arrival of the Pakistani cricket team at Hyderabad airport.
