A video of Virat Kohli strongly condemning an incident of mass molestation of young women on New Year's eve in Bengaluru in 2016 has been revived and is being peddled as the former Indian men's cricket team captain speaking out strongly against the rape and murder of a junior doctor in Kolkata this month.
BOOM found that the video was posted in January 2017 following a horrific incident in Bengaluru where several women were molested by mobs during New Year's eve celebrations in the city that year.
A 31-year old trainee doctor was raped and murdered while on night shift duty at Kolkata's RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9, 2024. The victim, a second-year MD student in the Chest Medicine department, was found murdered in the hospital's seminar hall. The tragic crime has sparked nationwide protests by the medical fraternity and civil society groups calling for safety of women in India. The incident has also led to widespread criticism of Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress Party and Kolkata Police's handling of the case.
Several celebrities have also condemned the incident. Kohli's video has been revived in this context.
In the 30-second clip, the cricketer can be heard saying, "Its disturbing and its shocking and I am ashamed to be a part of the society. I think we need to change our thinking, we need to treat men and women in the same way. Be respectful and treat women with some comapssion. See something like that happen and for people to watch it and not do anything about it, I think it's a cowardly act. Those people have no right to call themselves men. I have only one question. If something like that happens, god forbid, to someone in your family, would you stand and watch or would you help?"
Sharing the video, a Facebook user wrote, "Listen What Virat Kohli Is Telling About (victim's name) And The Society We Live In #JusticeForWomen."
Note, Indian law prohibits revealing the identity of a victim of sexual assault.
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The video is being shared widely on X also.
See post here and archive here.
Fact Check
Using a keyword search we were able to trace the video to two videos posted by Virat Kohli on his official on January 6, 2017.
The current viral video has been made by splicing the two videos together.
In the video captioned as "Change your thinking and the world will change around you", at 11 seconds to 24 seconds timestamp the star batsman can be heard saying, "It's disturbing and it's shocking...treat women with some compassion." The same words can be heard in the initial 13 seconds of the viral video.
Kohli posted another video with the caption, "This country should be safe & equal for all. Women shouldn't be treated differently. Let's stand together & put an end to such pathetic acts." In this video, from 5 seconds to 22 seconds timestamp we can hear him say, "To see something like that happen to those girls and for people to watch it and not do anything about it, I think it's a cowardly act. Those people have no right to call themselves men. I have only one question. If something like that happens, god forbid, to someone in your family, would stand and watch or would you help?"
We also found that the phrase "to those girls" have been clipped in the viral video.
See post here.
In the video, we heard the former skipper condemning an incident in Bengaluru. Taking a cue, we ran a related keyword search in Google and found multiple news reports about Kohli condemning mobs which molested several women on New Year's Eve in Bengaluru on the intervening nights of December 31, 2016 and January 1, 2017.
We found a report published by NDTV Sports on January 6, 2017 which contained Kohli's video. The article stated, "Expressing his anguish at the mass molestation incident in Bengaluru on New Year's eve, Indian batting talisman Virat Kohli on Friday took to Twitter to condemn the perpetrators of the act, as well as the people who watched over the incident without reacting."
See here.
