Fact Check: Video showing Muslim man removing saffron flag is scripted

Hyderabad: A video reportedly of a Muslim man forcing a pleading woman to return his money while trying to throw away a saffron flag hoisted in her home is going viral on social media. The video also shows another man helping the woman by thrashing the person and forcing him to raise a slogan for Lord Hanuman.

“Muslim man threw Ram ji’s flag,” wrote an X user who shared the video (Archive).

Several Facebook users have also shared the video. Click here, here, here and here to view the posts.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the video is a scripted skit.

We ran a relevant keyword search and found several X users flagging the video as scripted. A user said that all three characters in the video belong to the Hindu community with one of them named Hemraj Thakur. He posted screenshots of Hemraj’s Facebook profile.

With this cue, we looked for Hemraj Thakur on Facebook and came across a page named Himanshu Jatav. The URL to the page carries the username ‘iamhemraj’ which suggests that the page's name was changed. In the intro, the account user identifies himself as a video creator.

We skimmed through the page and found several staged videos but not viral ones. However, we noticed the man who ‘protects’ the woman in the viral video features in almost all videos. The videos also have a disclaimer stating the videos were for entertainment and that the characters are not real.

We also found a post on the page stating not to take his videos seriously. Most of the videos are scripted, and the same casts are there in all the videos.

NewsMeter contacted Hemraj Thakur, who confirmed changing the page name and deleting the video from the page. “I crossed the limit in making this video, and I apologise for hurting people’s sentiments,” Thakur said. He added, “I make videos on trending topics and will be careful of other’s sentiments in future.”