Fact-Check: Video of ‘Artist’ Viral as Pakistani Man Praising India, PM Modi

The man in the video is an 'artist' called Dhirendra Raghav from Agra, who plays different characters in his videos.

The video shows Dhirendra Raghav, an 'artist' from Agra, Uttar Pradesh.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A video of a man, identifying himself as Asif Zardari from Pakistan, is being shared on the internet as a message from a Pakistani Muslim to Indian Muslims.

What does the man say?: In the viral video, 'Zardari' tells Indian Muslims who are "dreaming of Pakistan" that Indians get to break their Ramadan fasts with dates and have fun, but their Pakistani counterparts have no food in their homes, no fuel in their cars, and their wives are leaving them.

• "This Pakistan cannot improve now," the man adds, saying that people are starving in the country. He urges Indian Muslims to support India, calling PM Modi a "very good" leader and saying that there is no better country than India.

• "We Pakistanis want India to attack us and take us under their control. Don't be stupid, don't betray India!" 'Zardari' says.

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

At the time of writing this report, this X post by '@RealBababanaras' gathered nearly 20,000 views.

(Archives of more claims on social media can be seen here, here, here, and here.)

Is it true?: No, the claim is false, as the video is a staged one.

• We were able to identify the man in the video as one Dhirendra Raghav, who identifies himself as an 'Artist' from Agra, Uttar Pradesh.

How did we find out?: Using InVID, a video verification extension on Google Chrome, we divided the viral video into multiple keyframes and ran a reverse image search.

• This led us to the same video on Instagram, where a user 'bhurajraghav' had shared it on 29 March 2024.

• On this post, we saw that its audio reflected the username 'dhirendra_raghav_79'.

The username of the account did not match the audio tag of this post.

(Source: Instagram/Altered by The Quint)

Taking a cue from this, we looked for the profile on Instagram and came across a verified account for Dhirendra Raghav, which mentioned 'Artist' in its bio.

The account mentioned that it was an artist's page.

(Source: Instagram/Altered by The Quint)

Here, we saw that the video in the viral claim was first shared here on 23 March 2024 with the caption, "There is no prime minister like Modi."

• When we went through Raghav's profile, we noticed that he often created and shared videos where he appeared to play different characters.

• While many of these videos were shot inside a vehicle – like the one in the claim – some showed him on the street, performing in different ways.

Raghav appears to play different characters, including Bollywood actor Salman Khan.

(Source: Instagram/Altered by The Quint)

The profile also carried a link to his Facebook page, which also mentioned that he was an 'Artist' from Agra, Uttar Pradesh.

His profile mentions that he is from Uttar Pradesh' Agra.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

The Quint has reached out to the creator for their inputs and will update this report as and when we receive a response.

Conclusion: A video of a content creator from India has gone viral with the false claim that it shows a Pakistani man addressing Indian Muslims and praising PM Modi.

(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9540511818 , or e-mail it to us at [e-mail] and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)