Fact Check: Begusarai school teacher abducted, forced to marry at gunpoint? No, it’s a movie scene
A video showing a man being abducted from a school by a group of men carrying rifles and guns is going viral on social media.
By K Sherly Sharon
Claim:The video shows a government teacher from Begusarai abducted, forced to marry at gunpoint.
Fact:The claim is false. The video was filmed to capture the shooting of a movie based on forced marriage.
Hyderabad: A video showing a man being kidnapped by a group of men carrying arms as school children in uniforms surround them is going viral on social media.
This video was shared by an X user with the caption, “A government school teacher from Begusarai was held at gunpoint and is being taken for marriage.” (Translated from Hindi) (Archive)
The same video was shared on another X post with the caption, “A Govt school teacher from Begusarai was held at gunpoint and is being taken for marriage. This isn’t a movie plot, it’s ground reality. Where is the fear of law? (sic)” (Archive)
Post making similar claims can be seen here. (Archive)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video shows the shooting of a film, and it is not a real incident.
‘Pakadua Vivah’ involves the abduction and forced marriage of single men with good career prospects, mostly with a government job, sometimes even at gunpoint.
In many instances, in the viral video, we can see people filming the incident using cameras and phones. We can also see a man carrying a reflector at the end of the video. A reflector is used to redirect light during photography and videography.
Using reverse image search, we found an Instagram video uploaded by the user ‘rajanrddfilms’. The video was uploaded on March 12 with the caption, “Pakauda marriage film shooting”. (Translated from Hindi) (Archive)
The video shows the incident from a different angle. Comparison of screenshots from both videos can be seen below.
The Instagram user has shared a link to a Facebook profile. In the Facebook profile, we found an image of a newspaper clipping shared on April 8.
The report reads, “The shooting of Angika film ‘Pakadwa Biyah’, which has been going on in the Teghra area of Begusarai for the last one month, is in its final stage… The film’s actor Amiya Kashyap said that the film was shot in dozens of villages of Teghra and Bhagwanpur area and now the shooting will be over in two to three days.” (Archive)
The report credits Kundan Kumar as the cameraperson for the film. On the Instagram account of Kundan Kumar, we found a video posted on Instagram on March 13. The video shows the incident from the viral video in another angle. The text on the video reads, “Shooting time”. (Archive)
The video does show an abduction at gunpoint, but it is not a real incident. The viral video was shot during the filming of an abduction scene for a movie based on the theme of forced marriage.
Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the viral claim is false
