By Nivedita Niranjankumar
A video from Pakistan of a man assaulting a child and then threatening to kill his wife with a rifle is viral a false claim that it shows a Muslim man who married a minor and then threatened to kill as she refused to consummate the marriage.
BOOM found that the video is from Lahore, Pakistan and the man resorted to extreme violence after a domestic dispute with this wife.
In the viral video, a man is first seen pushing a young girl away, as she cries for her mother and later the same man is seen in another room getting out a rifle as other men rush to stop him and take the rifle away from him.
The claim is being shared in India targeting Muslims with the text, "A #Muslim marries a 12 year old girl. She refuses to go to the marital bed. This hurts the man's feelings, so he goes to find his gun and kill her. "No, no" say his friends. "We are not #Savages . Show her your power as a man. Rape her!"
FACT CHECK
A reverse image search for a keyframe from the video led us to several news stories in Urdu by Pakistani outlets detailing an incident from Lahore, Pakistan.
The stories, from September 2023, reported that after the video went viral, the South Cantonment police station in Lahore, Pakistan conducted an investigation and arrested the accused.
The report onexpress.pk also carried a screenshot matching the visuals in the viral video.
Another reported story by aaj.tv also quoted the police station confirming the incident. The reports said the man was identified as Khurram Shabbir who was later arrested and the rifle with which he threatened his wife, a Kalashnikov, was also seized.
The story further said that in the video the accused pushed away his daughter which proves that the girl seen in the video was not his wife, as being claimed in the viral posts.
