Lighthouse Journalism came across a video of a man dancing being widely shared on social media platforms. It was claimed along with the video that a thief was beaten by a crowd and forced to dance on Song, somewhere in the NCR region. During the investigation we found the video to be from Bangladesh and not India.
Claim:
X user Ghar Ka Kalesh shared the video on X with a misleading claim.
Check the archive version of the post here.
Other users too are sharing the video with similar claims.
Several meme pages on Instagram too are sharing the video.
Investigation:
We started the investigation by uploading the video in the InVid tool and obtaining keyframes from the video.
This led us to a clear longer version of the video on YouTube.
We then used this video to obtain screengrabs and then ran a reverse image search on the same.
This led us to another video posted 11 days ago on YouTube.
The description mentioned in the hashtag suggested that the video could be from Bangladesh.
We also found the video posted on TikTok.
We also found a few posts that suggested that the video was from Bangladesh.
The video was also shared in Bangladesh stating that a robber was made to dance after being caught. One particular video uploaded on 11th August had over a million views.
The video was also shared on Facebook by Blood Donation Bangladesh Welfare Foundation.
The caption said (Translation): Dance crazy, whoever it is, if you catch a thief, a robber, you have to dance a lot with yourself and you have to dance.
We then connected with a senior fact checker in Bangladesh, Tausif Akbar. He shared with us a post that first appeared on Facebook.
Md Idrish Ali from Rajshahi, Bangladesh had shared various videos of the person seen in the video. The caption stated (translation): Brother, what is this?
There is a level of ragging
You guys have crossed that level too, They will remember forever
This post had several videos of the thief being caught and then made to dance by people.
Tausif also confirmed that the video is from Bangladesh.
Conclusion: Video from Bangladesh goes viral as thief being ragged after being caught in Delhi NCR region. Viral claim is misleading.
