Fact Check: A scripted video showing a scuffle between Hindu-Muslim over attending iftar at a mosque shared with communal spin

Hyderabad: A video showing a Muslim man asking a Hindu man to leave an iftar hosted at a mosque is being widely shared on social media.

In the viral video, a Muslim man asks a Hindu man dressed in saffron robes to leave the iftar at a mosque. Soon after a heated argument, fellow Muslim men came in support of the Hindu man and requested the man to be allowed saying, ‘Hunger has no religion’.

The video is being shared with an on-screen text that says, ‘A Hindu was thrown out of the mosque, our temples are open for everyone.’

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim is false as the viral video is a clip from a scripted ‘social experiment’.

We started our investigation by performing a reverse image search that led us to a similar version with a ‘Prank Buzz’ logo on the top right corner captioned ‘Ramadan ka iftar party mein social experiment. Hindu Muslim bhai bhai’.

Taking this as a cue, we performed a keyword search and found an extended version of the viral clip on a YouTube channel called ‘Prank Buzz’ with over 3.7 million subscribers dated April 6, 2024.

The video was titled ‘When a Hindu Sanyasi goes to a Muslim masjid for iftar? Hindu versus Muslim social experiment’ which suggested that the video is scripted. Going through the entire video, we found that there is a disclaimer at the beginning and at the end provided by the actors stating that the video is a social experiment.

The viral clip could be spotted at the timestamp of 00:52 seconds in the YouTube video.

On carefully analyzing the YouTube channel, we found that the channel is dedicated to entertainment videos. The About section describes the channel as ‘Hey Guys, We are PrankBuzz. Here You can Enjoy Full of Unlimited Entertainment with our Trust & Quality.’

Scrolling down the videos uploaded on the channel, we spotted the one enacting as a Hindu sanyasi in the viral video on every video uploaded on Prank Buzz. As the name suggests, the actors/YouTubers upload ‘prank videos’ on the channel. According to the cover image of the YouTube channel, the creators of the channel are identified as Animul Islam and Shubhrajit Mondal.

Not only this, we found other handles of Prank Buzz on other social media portals such as Instagram, Facebook and X with the same videos.

Lastly, we tried contacting the Prank Buzz page owners for further details about the video. We will update the copy as soon as we get the response.

With this, it is evident that the video is scripted.