Old footage misrepresented as home of Indian cricketer 'set aflame' after World Cup loss
- Published on December 27, 2023 at 09:24
- 5 min read
- By AFP Sri Lanka
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A Facebook post on November 28, 2023 shared the link of a YouTube video titled, "Virat Kohli's home set on fire."
Virat Kohli is an Indian cricketer and the former captain of the country's cricket team. He was named "Player of the Tournament" at the recently concluded ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 (archived here and here).
The Sinhala-language text overlaid on the video thumbnail reads, "Unable to bear the defeat, Virat Kohli's home set on fire."
The caption of the Facebook post, meanwhile, says, "Whatever has been said and done, this cannot be condoned. He too is human."
India lost to Australia in the finals of the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup in Ahmedabad, a city in western India's Gujarat state on November 19. The home team had entered the finals unbeaten and were touted as a strong contender for the cup (archived link).
However, Australia achieved the below-par target of 241 runs set by India easily and won the championship by six wickets.
The video uploaded on YouTube channel Damiya SL on November 21 shows a montage of three different houses engulfed in flames. The video's thumbnail also showed a photo of a distraught-looking Kohli alongside another image of a house on fire.
A Sinhala voiceover in the video says, "Indian cricket fans angered by their team's defeat has set fire to Virat Kohli's home, here is the footage of Kohli's house on fire."
"Here you see Kohli's beautiful home set on fire by a group of angry cricket fans. What you see here is Kohli's home, worth over 2000 million rupees, set ablaze and damaged," the voiceover adds. The said amount is equal to 1.6 million dollars.
The video was shared with similar claims elsewhere on Facebook here and here.
Comments from users suggest they were led into believing the claim to be genuine.
"Indian cricket fans are worse than the team. So petty and unable to accept defeat," a user commented.
Another said, "This cannot be condoned. No courage to accept defeat. But they boast about sending rockets to the moon."
But a spokesman for police in Mumbai -- where Kohli reportedly owns a house -- told AFP on December 26 that "no such incident has been reported" while keyword searches yielded no news accounts indicating the event described in the posts actually happened.
Reverse image searches on Google also found the clips and images of burning houses predate the World Cup.
Stock footage, old photo
The footages of burning houses shared in the false post were published here and here on Pexels, a repository of stock videos and photos (archived links here and here).
The video of the red brick house engulfed in flames was uploaded on Pexels on October 17, 2020. The caption with the clip reads, "Video of a House on Fire."
Below is a screenshot comparison of keyframes from the video shared with a false claim on YouTube (left) and the clip on the website for stock images (right):
The second footage showing firefighters putting out fire was uploaded on Pexels on April 9, 2020. The caption with the clip reads, "A Burning Apartment."
Below is a screenshot comparison of keyframes from the video shared with false claim on YouTube (left) and the clip uploaded on Pexel (right):
Two other images of burning houses were also included in the video.
A reverse image search of the thumbnail on Google led to this photo published on July 13, 2021 in an article by a US law firm about fire and smoke damage claims. It was also used in another context here in an article about buying fire insurance for residential apartments in Cambodia (archived here and here).
Another reverse image search of the photo of the burning house seen at the 14-second mark of the video led to an Instagram post of the fire department in Chico in the US state of California on June 20, 2022 (archived link).
The caption with Instagram post reads in part, "Early this evening, Chico Firefighters were dispatched to a residential structure fire on the 200 block of Legacy Lane (North Chico)."
Below is a screenshot comparison of the burning house seen in the YouTube video (left) and the image shared on Chico fire department's Instagram account (right):
AFP geolocated the site of the fire accident here.
The photo of Kohli on the thumbnail, which was also seen in the 18-second mark of the misleading video, was published by photo news agency Getty Images here (archived link). It was taken during a warm-up match between India and England in Dubai on October 18, 2021.
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