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Old Video From Pakistan Showing Man Threatening To Kill Electricity Officer Circulated As Incident From India
India, 1 Aug 2022 10:10 AM GMT
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Shivam Dixit, the social media coordinator at pro-BJP media outlet Panchajanya, circulated the video and wrote, “I will steal electricity, I will not pay the bill, and if I remove the wire, I will kill or be killed. Responsible citizen of ‘peaceful community’ humbly requests electricity officer. From where do they get so much courage?”. We found that the viral video is from Pakistan.
A video of a man dressed in a technician's clothing and accusing another person of stealing electricity is going viral on social media with communal claim.
Claim:
The 33 seconds video shows a person who is seemingly a technician exchanging words in Hindi with a man. The 'technician' asks the man whether he would allow them to reinstall the meter, to which the man responds, "No." The technician then asks, "What will you do if we restore it?" The man responds, "I will kill or be killed."
The man reiterates that till there is life in his body, the electricity supply won't be interrupted. He then turns to the camera recording the incident and shouts his name, exclaiming, "I will kill or be killed."
The video is viral across Twitter with the following translated claim, "I will steal electricity !! I will not agree !! ...I will kill or be I will be killed. This Taliban is being born within the country itself."
Shivam Dixit, the social media coordinator at pro-BJP media outlet Panchajanya, circulated the video with the following claim, "I will steal electricity, I will not pay the bill, and if I remove the wire, I will kill or be killed. Responsible citizen of 'peaceful community' humbly requests electricity officer. From where do they get so much courage?".
Dixit refers to the Muslim community as 'peaceful', a jab which is often used to portray the community as violent.
The claim is viral across Twitter and Facebook.
This video was viral in 2021 as well.
Fact Check:
The Logical Indian fact check team verified the claim and found it to be false. The viral video is from Pakistan.
We used InVid's Keyframe Analysis tool to isolate the keyframes of the viral video. We then conducted a reverse image search on some of the isolated keyframes, which led us to this tweet published by Fahad Mustafa on July 28, 2020.
This is a quote tweet of a tweet by K-Electric, a Pakistani energy company, published on July 27, 2020. The caption states that the man has been caught red-handed trying to steal electricity.
Taking this as a cue, we conducted a keyword search with relevant terms in Urdu. We then came across this tweet published by Trends Pakistan on July 28, 2020.
The translated caption of the tweet contained the same phrase said by the man in Hindi, "I will kill or be killed." We also came across this tweet by Siasat Pakistan, a Pakistani digital media platform published on 28th July 2020.
The caption translated from Urdu reads, "I will die or I will be killed, but I will not pull back. A man from Karachi boldly confessed to stealing electricity and started bullying people." The tweet linked to a video report by the Pakistani media outlet ARY News published on their Dailymotion channel.
In the ARY News report, the anchor says that the incident occurred in Karachi, Pakistan. The anchor notes that the man in the video is Ataur Rehman.The anchor says that Rehman threatened the electricity department authorities when they tried to install an electric meter to prevent him from stealing electricity.
We then conducted a keyword search across social media with the relevant keywords. We came across the same video report by ARY News uploaded to Facebook on July 28, 2020.
Conclusion:
In our Fact Check, we found that the viral video dates back to July 2020. The video originated in Karachi, Pakistan and shows a man named Ataur Rehman. Rehman threatened an electricity officer against installing an electricity meter for his home. Thus, we can ascertain that the netizens claim that an Indian Muslim man threatened an electricity officer is false.
If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.
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