Old, Unrelated Video Peddled as Christian Woman Killed by RSS Mob in Manipur

We found that neither is the video recent nor is it related to Manipur or India. The incident is from Brazil.

(Trigger Warning: Description of violence)

As ethnic violence continues in Manipur, a disturbing video of a woman being brutally killed by an axe is going viral as a recent incident from the state.

What have users said?: Social media users uploaded the video with a caption mentioning that the woman was a Christian woman who was killed by members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Manipur.

(We have refrained from adding any archive links due to the disturbing nature of the visuals.)

What is the truth?: The video is old and is unrelated to India. While the incident did happen, it is from Brazil.

• The woman was identified Thália Torres de Souza, a 23-year-old, who was kidnapped and murdered.

How did we find out?: We extracted several keyframes from the viral video using a video verification tool called InVID and performed a reverse image search on them.

• We came across the same video posted by a Twitter user named 'Fallen Angel'.

• The caption of the video when loosely translated to English said, "I have to share this with you because unfortunately very few people even know about this case. The woman in the video is 23-year-old Thália Torres de Souza from Brazil, who was kidnapped and brutally murdered (sic)."

• A keyword search in Portuguese led us to a post on Facebook which carried several details about the case.

• It said that the woman who was identified as Thalia Torres de Souza was murdered in the Granja Portugal neighbourhood.

• It said that the preliminary information revealed that the victim died due to a head injury and was found near the Maranguapinho River.

News reports: According to a report published on CN7, a 23-year-old girl was kidnapped by members of a criminal faction and was taken to Granja Portugal.

• The victim was bound with ropes and was taken by force to the banks of Maranguapinho River, where she was killed.

• The entire incident was recorded and showed visuals of the victim being hit with an axe and stones.

• The victim was wearing blue jeans and shirt which carried a logo of the Fortaleza Esporte Clube.

• The report further said that the accused are still at large.

• We compared the logo on the woman's T-shirt to the official logo Fortaleza Esporte Clube and found that both of them are the same.

A second wind?: The Quint had fact-checked the same video in 2020 when it was falsely claimed that the video showed a murder of a woman in India. You can read our older fact-check here.

Conclusion: Neither is the video recent nor is it from Manipur. The video is being falsely shared with a false communal colour on social media platforms.

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