Fact-Check: Viral Clips of Sanjay Dutt ‘Threatening’ Lawrence Bishnoi Are Edited

All videos of Sanjay Dutt have been altered and use AI-generated audio to make the false claim.

All three videos are altered and use AI-generated audio to make the false claim about Sanjay Dutt threatening Lawrence Bishnoi.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

After reports of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi threatening to kill actor Salman Khan and Congress MP Pappu Yadav emerged, social media users began sharing clips of actor Sanjay Dutt, claiming that he threatened Bishnoi.

The clips: Social media users are sharing three clips claiming that Dutt threatened Bishnoi in them.

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)

An archive of this post can be accessed here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

Click here to see an archived version of this post. 

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

(Archives of more posts sharing these clips can be seen here, here, here, here, and here.)

Is it true?: No, all videos are edited.

• The first one originally shows Dutt wishing people on Diwali in 2018, the second clip is of him thanking fans in 2016, while the last one shows him talking about a Marathi film he produced in 2019.

How did we find out?: We ran a reverse image search using Google Lens for all three videos, which led us to the original videos.

Video One: The first video, which shows Dutt in sunglasses and a white shirt, dates back to 6 November 2018.

• The clip was shared on Dutt's official Facebook page, with the caption 'Happy Diwali'.

• We ran this video through TrueMedia's AI-generated content detector.

• The results found "substantial evidence" the the audio in this clip was made using AI tools.

(Source: TrueMedia/Screenshot)

Video Two: A search on a cropped part of this clip led us to a report by entertainment channel Zoom TV on YouTube, which carried this clip in a bulletin shared on 15 August 2018.

• The viral visual can be seen 45 seconds into their report.

• Taking a cue from this, we looked for the video on Dutt's social media accounts.

• We found that the actor had shared the clip in question back in August 2018, when he thanked his fans for sending him "good wishes" on his birthday, apologising for being unable to thank each of them personally.

For this clip, too, TrueMedia's analysis was confident that the audio was AI-generated.

(Source: TrueMedia/Screenshot)

Video Three: The third clip shows Dutt in a black shirt and gold chains, speaking directly to the camera.

• We found this clip on Dutt's X account, shared on 8 August 2019.

• He thanked the media and audience for their positive reviews on the first Marathi film he produced, titled Baba.

For this last clip, TrueMedia's tool returned results which were completely confident that the audio was AI-generated.

(Source: TrueMedia/Screenshot)

Conclusion: None of the videos show Dutt threatening gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.

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