Claim: A video posted by various Indian media outlets shows a group of highly-charged men breaking a television after a cricket match between India and Pakistan during the Asia Cup 2022.
Fact: The video is four years old when cricket fans in Karachi broke a television set in anger at Pakistan losing to Bangladesh in 2018.
On 29 August 2022, the Indian news channel India TV posted a video on its Facebook page showing a group of angry men thrashing a TV following the Pakistani cricket team’s loss to India. The post was captioned as follows:
“Ind Vs Pak: पाकिस्तान में टीवी तोड़ने का सिलसिला जारी है..! कल के महामुकाबले में भारत ने पाकिस्तान को पांच विकेट से हराया था, जिसके बाद पाकिस्तान से टीवी तोड़ने के वीडियो सामने आ रहे हैं.. [Ind Vs Pak: Breaking TV continues in Pakistan..! In yesterday’s match, India defeated Pakistan by five wickets, after which videos of TV breaking are coming out from Pakistan.]”
The same was posted on India TV’s Twitter account, @indiatvnews (archived here), and on its Instagram account, @indiatvnews. All posts by India TV were accompanied by the hashtags #INDvsPAK, #India, #Pakistan, and #PAKvsIND.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check used reverse image search tools and relevant keywords to ascertain the source of the video and the time it was posted.
We found the same clip posted on 28 September 2018 on the verified Facebook page of ARY News. The report was aired following Pakistan’s defeat at the hands of Bangladesh in the Asia Cup 2018 match held in Abu Dhabi on 26 September 2018.
The first, second, and third screenshots show posts by the verified Facebook pages of India TV, Times Now, and Times Now Navbharat wherein the Indian media outlets misleadingly presented a video from 2018 as an instance from 2022. The fourth screenshot shows the 28 September 2018 post by the verified Facebook page of ARY News carrying the original video.
The visuals of both videos match with the ARY News anchorperson and its reporter, Ali Hasan, speaking about how Pakistani cricket fans in Karachi were disappointed over Pakistan’s performance against Bangladesh and broke their TV sets in anger.
The video posted by India TV, therefore, is misleading.
Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the three-day period from 27 August 2022 to 30 August using the following search terms:
- “पाकिस्तान में टीवी तोड़ने का सिलसिला जारी है []Breaking of TV continues in Pakistan”
- “में जीत के बाद भारत में जश्न, पाकिस्तान में लोगों ने तोड़े टीवी [Celebration in India after victory in Pakistan, people broke TV in Pakistan]”
The first search term turned up four posts that gained close to 6,600 interactions on Facebook, whereas the second search term yielded 162,905 interactions across 231 Facebook posts.
The video was posted on the verified Facebook page of India TV, where it received more than 245,000 views, 340 comments, 4,800 reactions, and 540 shares. The verified Facebook page of Times Now also shared the clip and received over 17,000 views, 50 comments, 2,500 reactions, and 70 shares.
Times Now Navbharat, another Indian news channel verified on Facebook, also uploaded the same video and received more than 377,000 views, 500 comments, 20,000 reactions, and 1,100 shares.
This post was viewed by over 15,000 people and received 35 comments, 738 reactions, and 51 shares.
India TV’s post on Twitter was viewed more than 23,000 times, while its Instagram post received more than 253,300 views, 19,000 likes, and 709 comments.
Conclusion: The video is four years old when cricket fans in Karachi broke a television in anger at Pakistan losing to Bangladesh in 2018.