Scripted Video of Kids 'Romancing' on Delhi Streets Viral With Communal Spin
We found a version of the video that carried a disclaimer calling the video "scripted."
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A video showing a boy and two girls – dressed in their school uniforms – standing in an alleyway, is going viral on social media.
In the clip, the boy can be seen picking up one of the girls and then hugging her, while a person records this incident from balcony and throws water on them to drive them away.
At the end of the video, a man states that this is a common incident happening in Delhi involving school kids. The video is being shared with a communal angle to push the narrative of 'Love Jihad,' a term popularised by the right wing referring to alleged campaign of Muslims forcefully converting Hindu girls in the guise of love.
However, we found that this is one of the many scripted videos that have gone viral on the internet as real incidents. Several such videos have been shared over the last few months with misleading claims.
CLAIM
Several claims around this clip suggest that the boy belongs to the Muslim community and the girls to the Hindu community.
The claim also states that the video is from Delhi.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On carefully observing the 5:39 minutes video, we noticed a disclaimer that pops up at the 31 second timestamp.
It states, "The content made in this video should be considered for entertainment purpose only, information contained herein is not intended to be source of advice or credit analysis with respect to the information presented.."
The video carried a disclaimer.
(Source: Screenshot)
Next, we ran a reverse image search on one of the keyframes of the video, where the person who threw water on the kids can be seen.
This led us to an article by an online media outlet Maxtern, which carried a few images of the same person.
We then looked for his profile on Facebook and found that he uploads a lot of similar scripted videos on his social media platforms, including YouTube. His bio on his Facebook page mentioned: 'This page is all about my prank videos on my YouTube channel.'
We could spot him in several other videos.
Comparison between different pictures of Ankur.
(Source: The Quint)
Clearly, a scripted video is being shared as a real incident from Delhi.
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