No, That’s Not Hima Das’ Family Celebrating Her Gold Medal

The family in the video is not Hima Das’, but that of Swapna Barman’s who’s an Indian heptathlete.

A viral video falsely claimed that it shows Indian runner Hima Das’ family.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint/Twitter/Hima Das)

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CLAIM

A viral video is being circulated on social media with the claim that Indian athlete Hima Das’ family cried after watching her win gold for India. The video shows a group of people sitting in front of a television set. While watching something onscreen, a woman breaks down and goes outside the room. The video ends with visuals of Hima Das.

Several social media users have shared the video on Facebook with a similar claim.

The archived version of the Facebook post can be viewed here.

TRUE OR FALSE?

The claim around the video is false. Firstly, the family in the video is not Hima Das’ but that of Swapna Barman, who’s an Indian heptathlete. Secondly, the video is not only a year-old, but has also been morphed by adding visuals of Das to the original video.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We searched on YouTube using keywords ‘Hima das gold family,’ and found a video which was posted on 3 September 2018. A user had commented on the video claiming that it’s Swapna Barman’s family an not Hima Das’.

YouTube keyword search led us to a video published in 2018.(Photo: YouTube screenshot)

Consequently, we did a Google search using keywords ‘swapna barman family,’ and found a video published by Hindustan Times on 30 August 2018. Also, the original video did not have visuals of Hima Das, which clearly suggests that the viral video is not only old but has also been morphed.

Google keyword search led us to a video published by Hindustan Times.(Photo: Google screenshot)

On carefully listening to the commentary in the viral video, we could hear ‘Barman takes the gold,’ which further ascertained that the video is from 2018 and related to Swapna Barman.

In August 2018, after winning gold in Asian Games’ heptathlon event, Barman became the first Indian to have achieved this position. The description in the HT video read that Barman’s mother broke down after watching her win gold at the event.

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