Video of a man accepting that he was stealing electricity is actually from Pakistan.
Claim
Karnataka Electricity department is paying for the promises of #Congress #CongressMuktBharat
Rating
Explanation
A video of a man seen admitting that he was stealing electricity is widely shared with the claim that the video is from Karnataka. The person seen in the video threatens that he would kill himself if anyone removes the hook attached to the power line through which electricity is being stolen. The viral posts mention that the Karnataka electricity department is paying for the promises of Congress. Some of the posts with such a claim can be seen here and here.
#Karnataka Electricity department is paying for the promises of #Congress pic.twitter.com/3TLhgAi6W8
— Tish (@TiaraTiesta) June 11, 2023
What is the truth?
When reverse-searching the keyframes of the viral video we found that the video is old and is not from Karnataka but from Pakistan.
Watch this man caught red handed! #ChoriAurSeenaZori pic.twitter.com/XXZGw5s27t
— KE (@KElectricPk) July 27, 2020
A tweet dated 27, July 2020 by K-Electric Ltd is found carrying the viral video. The Twitter page KE with the username ‘KElectricPk’ mentioned itself as Pakistan’s largest power utility in the bio. The tweet is captioned “Watch this man caught red handed! #ChoriAurSeenaZori”.
One of the Twitter users, Naveed replied a Youtube video to the K-Electric’s tweet mentioning “Shame on you #kelectricPk. Here is complete video in this link. The other side of story.”
The Youtube video in the above tweet was uploaded on 26, July 2020 by a Pakistan-based channel with the title “Real Viral Video 2020 K-Electric Bullying || 17 lakh bill || Diya”.
The description part in Urdu is roughly translated as “Mufti Attaur Rahman’s rascality of Electric is a bad thing. Deen was sent a bill of 17 lakhs and the meter will also be removed by force.”
With further search with relevant keywords in Urdu, we found an article by Urdu Point reporting the same incident. It mentioned that Mufti Attaur Rahman was stealing electricity by attaching a hook to the power line. He threatened that he would kill self before anyone removes the hook attached to the power line.
Conclusion
It is found that the video of a man accepting that he was stealing electricity is actually from Pakistan. But the video is falsely shared in the name of Karnataka.
