Fact Check: Hindu man asked to leave Iftar by Muslims? No, video is scripted

Hyderabad: A video claiming to show a Hindu-Muslim scuffle during Iftar at a mosque is going viral on social media. In the video, a Muslim man is seen asking a Hindu man, dressed in saffron robes, to leave an Iftar gathering. The video has been widely shared with a communal narrative.

An Instagram user posted it with the caption, “And go eat free Iftari... Beat the bastard and then make halala of it all together.”(Archive)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the video is scripted and was created as a ‘social experiment.’

A reverse image search led us to a similar version of the video with a Prank Buzz watermark. The caption read, “Ramadan ka iftar party mein social experiment. Hindu Muslim bhai bhai.”

We then performed a keyword search and found a longer version of the video uploaded on April 6, 2024, on a YouTube channel called Prank Buzz, which has over 3.8 million subscribers.

The video was titled ‘When a Hindu Sanyasi goes to a Muslim masjid for iftar? Hindu vs. Muslim social experiment,’ confirming that the scene was staged. The viral clip appeared at the 00:52-minute mark in the full video.

At the beginning and end of the video, a disclaimer clarified that the incident in the video was a social experiment and not a real incident.

An analysis of the Prank Buzz YouTube channel revealed that it regularly posts entertainment and prank 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.”

Further, we found multiple videos featuring the same actor who played the Hindu sanyasi in the viral video. The channel’s creators, Animul Islam and Shubhrajit Mondal, frequently upload staged prank videos on the channel.

Moreover, Prank Buzz has official accounts on Instagram, Facebook and X, where they post similar scripted content.

The viral claim is false. The video is scripted and was shot as a social experiment for entertainment purposes.