Clip shows fatal shooting in Brazil, not India's Bihar state

Published on June 12, 2025 at 11:27
3 min read
By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India

As politicians traded criticism over the crime rate in the Bihar state in eastern India ahead of elections expected later this year, footage of a drive-by shooting has circulated in social media posts falsely claiming it shows the "lawlessness" in the region. But the clip was actually filmed in Brazil's Joao Pessoa city in October 2024.

"In the era of good governance in Bihar, Pawan Dusadh was shot dead in broad daylight. If this murder took place during the reign of Tejashwi Yadav, every media channel would have said 'lawlessness has returned to Bihar'," reads a Hindi-language Facebook post.

The clip, shared with captions raising concerns over public safety in Bihar, shows two people on a motorcycle shooting another person before fleeing the scene.

It has been watched over 112,000 times since it was uploaded on May 30.

Screenshot of the false post, taken on June 11, 2025

Yadav will lead the state opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) party to challenge the coalition government -- mainly made up of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- in elections in Bihar expected later this year (archived link).

Leader of India's largest opposition Congress party Rahul Gandhi has accused Kumar of turning Bihar into the country's "crime capital", while BJP leaders in the state said the RJD was responsible for the increasing crime rate (archived here and here).

The footage has circulated with similar claims on Facebook and X.

Comments from users suggest they believed the claim to be genuine.

"Young people who speak up and raise their voices in Bihar are being murdered in this manner to silence them and spread fear, so that the entire society remains intimidated", reads a comment.

Another user wrote, "The common people are not safe at all in Bihar."

But the video shows an incident from Brazil, not Bihar.

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes found the video was published in a report by Brazilian broadcaster TV Tambau on October 4, 2024 with a headline that reads, "Man is killed on the road while riding a motorcycle in Mandacaru" (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the false clip (left) and the video report from TV Tambau

Further keyword searches show Brazilian website O Povo PB published a longer clip on October 8, 2024 showing the same scene from a different angle at the 3:09 mark (archived link).

The website identified the victim as 22-year-old Gabriel Junior de Oliveira Medeiros, who was shot dead in the Mandacaru neighbourhood in Joao Pessoa.

Images on Google Street View also show that the video was captured along the Avenida Dom Manoel Paiva in the city (archived link).

Comparison of the false video (left) and images on Google Street View, with similarities highlighted by AFP

AFP has debunked other false claims related to Yadav here and here.

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