Cropped video of Indian film star’s appeal against coronavirus lockdown shared with false claim

Khan has been receiving death threats for years from Bishnoi’s gang in retaliation for the actor killing two bucks during a recreational hunt in 1998.

The Bishnoi gang, accused of multiple murders and extortions, comes from a larger desert-based religious sect that views the antelope species as the reincarnation of their guru (archived link).

In April, Mumbai police arrested two members of the Bishnoi gang for firing shots outside Khan’s residence (Archived link).

The video went viral after senior politician Baba Siddique was shot dead by Bishnoi gang members in Mumbai on October 12. Siddique was considered a close friend of Khan (archived link).

The clip appeared in a similar X-post, which received more than 800,000 views and was also shared on Facebook.

But in the original video, the actor actually appealed to the public to adhere to Covid-19 protocols after India’s first 21-day lockdown was lifted on April 14, 2020.

Covid plea

A reverse image search and keyword search on Google produced a longer version of the video, which was posted on Khan’s official Instagram account on April 15, 2020.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip shared on fake posts (left) and the video shared on Salman Khan’s Instagram handle (right):

The mistakenly shared video online was removed from the 8:38 mark of Khan’s Instagram video.

In the clip, Khan reacts angrily to reports of attacks on doctors and nurses and Covid-positive patients fleeing hospitals.

“If you all had strictly followed the Corona lockdown guidelines, thousands of people, doctors, police officers would not have fallen ill with Corona and we would have gone back to work. But the country will stay at home because of the few people,” he says in Hindi.

At the 8:38 mark of the video, he says, “I understand that you are very powerful. You are very brave. You are brave enough to lift the bier of your family members. Do you have enough courage?”

The video ends with the actor urging the public to stay at home and follow the lockdown guidelines.

On March 25, 2020, a 21-day nationwide lockdown was announced in India due to a sharp rise in the number of Covid-19 cases (Archived link).

Khan’s video appeal was published by various Indian media outlets such as Sansad TV and NDTV (archived here and here).

AFP found no reports of Khan publicly threatening Lawrence Bishnoi as of October 18.