Fact-check: Sehwag, Assam channels share fake video of Pak fan smashing TV

Guwahati: A 17-second video clip showing a man breaking his television set while watching a cricket match has been shared by former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag. The clip supposedly shows a Pakistani cricket fan smashing his television set after his team lost to India in the nail-biting encounter on Sunday.

Sharing the video on Twitter, Sehwag wrote (in Hindi), “Relax neighbour, it’s only a game. Here we burst crackers on the occasion of Diwali, and you are breaking a TV for no reason. Why blame the TV, man.”  (See Archived link)

The video was also shared by various Assamese news channels on their social media pages with a similar claim. Guwahati-based news channel News Live and news portal Sangbad Prahari shared the clip with a caption (in Assamese), “A Pakistani fan breaks his TV.” (Click here and here to see the video)

However, EastMojo found out the video is digitally manipulated and is being shared under a false claim.

Fact-check:

We fragmented the video into several keyframes using InVid video analysing tool and ran a reverse image search on the screenshots. This led us to a 3.29-minute YouTube video uploaded six years ago.

We compared both the videos and found that the viral clip has been edited from the original video and then digitally manipulated. From the YouTube video it is evident that a football match is being played on the TV screen, and not a cricket match as claimed.     

See below for comparison:

The title of the YouTube video reads: “Angry Football Fan Smashes His TV and Laptop Turkey – Croatia”.

Taking this as a lead we performed a Google search using the relevant keywords. This led us to a news article published in the express.co.uk in June 17, 2016. The report identified the football fan as Izzet Salti from Turkey and the incident took place while he was watching Turkey’s match against Croatia in the Euro 2016 game.

According to the report, his girlfriend pulled a prank which angered him to such an extent that he lost his temper and smashed the TV with his laptop. The incident was also reported by the Daily Mail on June 16, 2016.

This clearly shows that the video of the angry football fan had been digitally altered to falsely claim that a Pakistani cricket fan destroyed his television set after India’s victory over Pakistan in the recent T20 match played in Melbourne.

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