How did we find out?: In the video, a person off-camera can be heard counting down from seven in Spanish, which indicated that the video might not be from India.
We ran a reverse image search on a screenshot of the viral video on Google, which led us to a Reddit post that was shared on 30 October 2021.
This video was shared on a subreddit called ‘Narco Footage,’ where the title mentioned that it showed a thief being punished by a cartel member.
We also came across another website which had shared this video in 2022.
Disinformation about station master ‘Mohammed Sharif’?: In an earlier fact-check, The Quint had found that the station master’s name was not Mohammed Sharif as claimed.
-
We verified the identity of the station master with Balasore’s Deputy Collector, the CPRO of South Eastern Railways and some local reporters, all of who confirmed that the station master’s name was neither Sharif nor was he from the Muslim community.
-
CPRO Aditya Kumar Chaudhary told The Quint that SB Mohanty…