Cropped Video Falsely Claims Iran President Touched Hindu Seer’s Feet

Several Indian media outlets misreported a video of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian bending down at an event as showing him touching the feet of a Hindu seer Jagadguru Satish Acharya.

BOOM found that Pezeshkian had bent down to pick up an item that Jain monk Acharya Lokesh Muni was handing to him after it fell to the ground, and was not touching the seer’s feet. Muni, who was standing beside Pezeshkian and witnessed the interaction, confirmed this to BOOM.

This year’s BRICS summit was held at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on September 12 and 13, with Iranian President Pezeshkian visiting India to attend the meeting.

The Claim:

The video is being shared on social media with the claim that Pezeshkian bent down to touch the feet of Jagadguru Satish Acharya and seek his blessings.

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Hindi news outlets, including ABP News and Navbharat Times, misreported the video with the false claim. The outlets later updated their reports.

What We Found:

1) Pezeshkian bent down to pick up a pen and paper

We broke the video into keyframes and ran a reverse image search using Google Lens, which led us to a post by Ismat TV, an Indian Islamic social media outlet. Ismat TV had posted calling out media outlets for misreporting the video.

We then reached out to Syed Hussain Mehdi, a cameraperson with Ismat TV, who was also present at the event and recorded the interaction and videos at the event.

Mehdi told BOOM that Pezeshkian had bent down to pick up a pen and a piece of paper that had fallen to the ground and was not touching the seer’s feet.

“A monk was passing him a piece of paper and a pen when it fell down. The Iranian President first bent down to pick them up, and then later Jagadguru Satish Acharya also bent down which was edited out of the viral video,” Mehdi told BOOM.

Mehdi also shared a longer video of the interaction with BOOM, in which the same sequence of events can be seen.

BOOM also reached out to Acharya for a response, the article will be updated on receiving one.

2) Jain monk who handed Pezeshkian the paper confirms sequence of events

Jain monk Acharya Lokesh Muni, who can be seen standing beside the Iranian President in the video, also denied the viral claim. Muni told BOOM that Pezeshkian had bent down to pick up a piece of paper that he had been trying to hand to him.

“I was holding a magazine of my organisation and it fell from my hand while I was trying to pass it to him. It was the humility of the Iranian President that he bent down himself and picked it up without thinking of protocol,” Muni told BOOM.