A video showing police personnel in Sialkot, Pakistan dig up what appears to be a grave only to reveal that a faith healer ('Pir') was residing beneath it, is being falsely shared by Indian social media users as a video from Punjab, India.
BOOM found that the video shows an incident that took place in Pakistan in 2020 and has no connection with India.
The Hindi caption with the video translates to, "Pir Sahib used to answer his followers from the grave. When the Punjab Police came to know about it, Pir Sahib was taken out of the grave along with his voice."
(Original Text in Hindi: मुरीदो के पुकारने पर पीर साहब कबर से जवाब देते थे। जब पंजाब पुलिस को पता चला तो पीर साहब को आवाज समेत कब्र से बाहर निकाल लिया।)
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Fact Check
BOOM performed a reverse image search on one of the keyframes on the viral video and found it on a YouTube channel named Urdu Click Official published on February 17, 2020.
The caption with the video reads as, "Finally Sialkot Police Arrest Fake Peer 2020".
Taking a cue from this, we did a relevant Urdu keyword search on Twitter and found the same video on Twitter uploaded on February 15, 2020. Pakistani investigative journalist Adeel Raja tweeted the video mentioning the incident happened in Sialkot, Pakistan.
Click here to view the tweet.
We also found a Pakistani news channel ARY News's report published about the incident on February 19, 2020. According to the report, "the faith healer had made himself at home inside a grave at a cemetery in the area and had propped up a sleeping bag and kept edibles with him."
"Various tunnels were dug around the grave leading up to the one where the faith healer was residing to befuddle people and fool them into paying him huge amounts of cash for apparent 'black magic'", stated the article.
The report further mentioned that the local police arrested the fake faith healer but he was released shortly after he posted bail and left the police station with his followers on a motorbike.
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