Fact Check: Viral video of Salman Khan threatening Lawrence Bishnoi is digitally manipulated

Amid widespread speculation that Lawrence Bishnoi’s gang was responsible for the killing of NCP leader Baba Siddiqui due to his close ties with Salman Khan, several videos of the actor have been circulating on social media. These videos claim that Salman Khan is threatening Lawrence Bishnoi in retaliation.

In one such video, Salman Khan is allegedly heard saying, "Lawrence Bishnoi, you made a big mistake by separating a son from his father. Bishnoi, you will pay for this very soon. I swear by God, if I don't turn you into a dog, then my name is not Salman Khan."

An X user shared the video and wrote, “Salman Khan gave an open challenge to Bishnoi.” (Archive)

Another X user shared the video and wrote, “Salman Khan is angry if the rule of mafia continues in Mumbai like this, then it will not take much time for Mumbai to become the Mumbai of 1960-70.” (Archive)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim to be false. The original video shows Salman Khan in conversation with his brother, Arbaaz Khan, in 2021, with no reference to Lawrence Bishnoi.

Upon closely watching the video, we noticed that Salman Khan's words were not in sync with his lip movements. After conducting a reverse image search of the video's keyframes, we found a 23-minute video published on the YouTube channel Qu Play on July 21, 2021, titled “Quick Heal Pinch by Arbaaz Khan.”

The video features a conversation between the Khan brothers about social media, discussing its pros and cons. Arbaaz reads comments from Salman’s posts, and Salman responds to them. Throughout the entire conversation, we found no reference to Lawrence Bishnoi.

To pinpoint the exact moment of the viral clip in the original video, we analysed Salman Khan’s hand gestures and found that the clip appeared around the 14:52 mark. At this point in the video, Salman Khan mentions that even if 90 percent of people speak ill of him, he will continue posting on social media for the remaining 10 percent.

The Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU) of the Misinformation Combat Alliance (MCA) analysed the video using multiple AI detection tools, including Hiya voice detection, TrueMedia, and Hive AI. While no AI tampering was detected, they noted that the poor audio quality and short duration of the video may have impacted the results. However, they concluded that the voice in the video can not be reliably attributed to Salman Khan, as his lip movements do not match the audio.

Hence, we conclude that the viral clip is from 2021 and has been digitally manipulated. The claim of Salman Khan threatening Lawrence Bishnoi is false.

On October 15, NewsMeter debunked another viral clip from 2020 that falsely claimed the actor was threatening Lawrence Bishnoi following Siddiqui’s murder.