This footage shows a man diving into a flooded street in India

This article is more than one year old.
Published on September 4, 2020 at 07:05
3 min read
By AFP Pakistan

A video that shows a man diving off a building into a flooded street has been viewed more than two millions times on Facebook alongside a claim that he performed the stunt in the Pakistani city of Karachi. The claim is false; the footage in fact shows a man diving in the Indian city of Indore, which experienced major flooding in August 2020.

The 49-second video was published on Facebook here on August 25, 2020. It has been viewed 2.1 million times and shared 13,000 times.

The post’s Urdu-language caption translates to English as: “Karachi, Surjani Town ! The poors’ Charna Island.”

Surjani Town is a neighbourhood in Karachi, a major port city in Pakistan. Charna Island is a small uninhabited island just north off the coast of Karachi and is a popular swimming and diving destination.

A screenshot taken on September 2, 2020, of the misleading Facebook post

The same footage was also shared alongside a similar claim on Facebook here and here; on Twitter here and here; and on YouTube here and here.

The claim, however, is false.

A commenter on the misleading YouTube post suggested the video was actually recorded in Indore, a city in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

A screenshot taken on September 2, 2020, of the YouTube video comment

A keyword search found the video was also published in several posts on Twitter that identified the location as Indore. One of the tweets, for instance, reads: “Rains in Indore broke a 100 year record yesterday. Chacha (uncle) wasted no time.”

A screenshot of the tweet

Further online searches found a man claiming to be the diver in the video.

The man, who identified himself as Indore resident Zafar Ahmed Khan, addressed the false claim in a video published on Facebook here on September 1, 2020.

The man states in the video: “My name is Zafar Ahmed Khan … Due to flooding we were busy rescuing the people. After that I dived [into the water] and the video became viral. After it became viral it was broadcast as a video from Karachi, Pakistan … That is fake news. I am in fact a resident of Indore, Madhya Pradesh.”

The Facebook post’s Hindi-language caption translates to English as: “This guy who lives in Indore is Zafar aka Bhura Bhai, a few days back he was seen jumping from his terrace in a pool of rainwater. His video got viral. That video was shared by Indian Media News18 with a claim that it is from Karachi, Pakistan. Listen to what Bhura Bhai has to say.”

A screenshot taken on September 2, 2020 of the Facebook post carrying video of the diver from Indore, India.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the Facebook video (L) and the footage shared in the misleading posts (R):

A screenshot comparison of Khan’s Facebook video identifying himself as the diver (L) and the footage shared in the misleading posts (R)

Heavy rainfall and widespread flooding in Indore in late August 2020 was widely reported by Indian news outlets; for example by India's National Herald newspaper here and by English-language daily newspaper The Times of India here.

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