Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
Bollywood film actors attend Saif Ali Khan’s memorial after the latter’s passing.
Fact
Viral video shows Naseerudin Shah among others attending filmmaker Shyam Benegal’s funeral.
A video allegedly showing actor Naseerudin Shah among other Bollywood personalities attending the memorial of Saif Ali Khan allegedly after the latter died is going viral on TikTok.
Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan was hospitalised after he was attacked with a knife in a scuffle with an intruder at his house on January 16.
Against this backdrop, TikTok user @id.fawad posted a video showing Bollywood artist Naseerudin Shah, among others, attending a memorial service. Text superimposed on the video reads, “Saif Ali Khan RIP.” Below the footage, a huge photo of Saif Ali Khan is also attached.
The video posted on January 18 has garnered 47.2k likes, 2178 users have shared it, and 1535 people have commented until the last count.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the veracity of the claim, Newscheker split the video into several keyframes and ran reverse searches on them. However, the results didn’t throw any relevant results.
We then conducted key-phrase searches for ‘Naseerudin Shah attending funeral’ and found an article, dated December 24, 2024, carrying an image resembling the dress of Nasreeudin in a viral video. On checking the article published in Times of India, we found that the photo showed Nasreerudin Shah attending the memorial service of Bollywood film maker Shyam Benegal.
Taking a clue from the article, we ran a search on YouTube and found a video, dated December 24, 2024, published on the YouTube channel named Lehren TV. On checking the video, we found that the video clip from 0:47-minute onwards matched the viral video.
Further, we looked up the news regarding the current status of actor Khan and found an article, dated January 23, published on NDTV online. The article noted that Saif Ali Khan returned to his Bandra home on Tuesday after being discharged from Lilavati Hospital. He had sustained six stab wounds – one of which was on his spine – caused by an intruder who broke into his house.
Thus, our findings showed that Saif Ali Khan is recovering from injuries he sustained in recent attack and the viral video shows Bollywood actor Naseerudin Shah attending the funeral of Shyam Benegal.
Conclusion
No, the viral video doesn’t show the funeral of Sai Afli Khan. The viral video actually shows Naseerudin Shah among other Bollywood personalities attending the funeral of film maker Shyam Benega. Thus, the claim is misleading.
Result: False
Sources
Times of India , December 24, 2024
Lehren TV /YouTube , December 24, 2024
NDTV, Jan 23, 2025
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
