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 actor Sunny Deol attacked and Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured to punish the perpetrators.
Fact
Viral video is edited by linking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2019 speech assuring to punished the perpetrators of Pulwama terror attack.
At a time when Bollywood movie Gaddar 2, starring actors Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel, is doing incredibly well at the box office, a video claiming that actor Deol has been attacked is going viral on TikTok. The video also purportedly shows India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi warning to book the perpetrators involved in the attack on actor Deol.
TikTok user sanideval69 posted a video showing a clip of Sunny Deol lying on a bed and alongside another clip of Prime Minister Narendra Modi issuing a warning that those involved in the attack would be penalised. In the video clip, Modi says, “Those forces who are behind this attack would definitely be punished for the crime.” Text superimposed on the video reads, “Sunny has been attacked.”
The clip follows several footage from Gaddar 2 movie with a narration. The narrator says in Hindi, “Friends, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been incensed by the way Pakistan played an awful game to remove Sunny Deol from the way because of the movie Gaddar 2. Along with his warning to Pakistan, PM Modi has made up his mind to take action against them.” The narrator then goes on to say how the film is doing well at theatres while the fans gathered at cinemas are chanting slogans in favour of Bharat and against Pakistan.
“Perhaps Pakistan is not able to put up with this fact and it is embarrassed of itself. After a long hiatus a movie has been released that has torn apart Pakistan, and because of this Pakistan has been dazed. To avenge this, Pakistan has tried to assault the protagonist of the movie Sunny Deol,” the narrator says. It further claims that a few unknown people tried to assault Sunny Deol during a movie promotion event but police arrested them and sent them behind bars for interrogation. “When our Prime Minister Narendra Modi learnt about it, he became angry. Because you must be aware of the fact that Sunny Deol is also a Member of Parliament from Bharatiya Janata Party besides being an actor. How could the prime minister remain a mute-spectator to these activities? This is not a new thing that Sunny Deol is the target of Pakistan.”
The video posted on August 18 has garnered 2484 likes, 69 shares and 38 people have commented on it.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker searched for news reports regarding the attack on Bollywood star Sunny Deol and Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking about the same by using relevant keywords. But we couldn’t find anything supporting such a claim.
We, then, closely observed the video and noticed that the clip contained multiple clips including footage from Gaddar 2. So, we selectively split the video into several keyframes and conducted reverse searches on them.
Firstly, we conducted a reverse search on a frame showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi purportedly speaking about the alleged attack on actor Deol. The search led us to an article, dated 15 February 2019, published on India Today online. The article titled ‘Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemns Pulwama terror attack’ also carried a YouTube video whose frame from 0.33-minute timestamp exactly matched the clip used in the viral video, disclosing that the footage was old and unrelated to the claim made in the viral video.
Then, we took another keyframe from a video clip apparently captured by Sunny Deol himself. The search led us to a short video whose frame exactly matched the clip used in the viral video. The video, dated 5 August 2023, showed actor Deol taking his own video, and was published on the YouTube channel named Mobby TV.
Then, we searched for news whether the cinema goers in India chanted slogans against Pakistan. But didn’t find any reports of such an incident.
Further, we conducted a reverse search on a keyframe showing Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel sitting together with soldiers. The search threw up several results matching the image used in the viral video. On checking an article, dated 2 December 2021, we found that the image was from the shooting of the movie Gadar, a sequel to the superhit 2001 film.
Thus, our findings showed that actor Deol has neither been attacked nor any attempt was made to attack him during the promotion of his movie Gaddar 2. The viral video was made up by using an unrelated and old clip of Prime Minister Modi assuring to punish the perpetrators of Pulwama terror attack that took place in 2019.
Conclusion
The viral video claiming that Bollywood actor Sunny Deol has been attacked and Prime Minister Modi has assured to take action against those involved in assaulting him is misleading. The viral video has created a false narrative by linking Prime Minister Modi’s old speech regarding the Pulwama terror attack.
Result: False
Sources
India Today/YouTube, 16 February, 2019
Indiatoday.in, 15 February, 2019
Moby TV/YouTube, 5 August, 2023
NDTV, 2 December, 2021
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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.
