An apology video of Indian stand-up comic Munawar Faruqui has gone viral online to claim that he has issued an apology to jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi after receiving threats from his gang.
This claim comes after Ajit Pawar led-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Baba Siddique was murdered on 12 October by three individuals who claimed to have links with Bishnoi.
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: X/Screenshot)
How did we find out the truth?: We looked for this video on Faruqui's official X (formerly Twitter) page and found it as a post which was shared on 12 August.
However, the comedian does not mention Bishnoi, instead he mentions that he is apologising to the Konkanis.
The caption reads in Marathi, "Much love and my apologies to Konkan."
He says in Hindi, "Hi friends, I am here clarify something. Sometime ago, there was a show where I engaged in crowd work, not even a proper joke, which happened during an interaction. I mentioned something about the Konkanis. I have many friends from that community, but it seems my words were taken out of context where people think I have joked about Konkan. But no, I never intended to insult anyone."
"As a stand-up comedian, my job is to make people laugh, not to hurt them. I sincerely apologize to anyone who felt offended. The people I made the joke about also enjoyed the show a lot. There were people from all backgrounds at the show— Marathis, Muslims, Hindus and I truly regret any misunderstanding. Jai Hind, Jai Maharashtra," he adds.
This was also reported by Hindustan Times, India Today, News18, Mid Day and Outlook India.
Moreover, we did not find any credible evidence of Faruqui apologising to the Bishnoi gang.
Conclusion: An old video of Munawar Faruqui apologising is going viral to falsely claim that he issued an apology to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.
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