A video purportedly from a wedding has gone viral on social media. In the video, the groom, who appears to be in an inebriated state, offers the wedding garland (varmala) to the woman standing next to the bride. The woman with the garland subsequently slaps the groom in anger.
Several users have shared this clip and pointed out that despite the alcohol prohibition in Bihar, the groom appears to be drunk and made the sister-in-law wear the varmala instead of the bride.
A Twitter user shared this video and wrote, “Liquor is banned in Bihar.” (Archived link)
बिहार में शराब बैन है 🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/LRhF3VY7ne
— Soniya (@_S0niya51) July 18, 2022
Times Now posted the viral video along with the headline “Oops! Drunk groom puts varmala around sister-in-law’s neck, gets slapped”.
Dainik Jagran and India Times also amplified the claim in their report.
In addition, several other media outlets aired the video with the same claim. Among them were Asianet News Kannada, Free Press Journal, Telugu Stop, National Dastak, iDiva and Pakistan’s Geo TV. Social media users also amplified this clip with the same claim.
Fact-check
A closer look at the video clarifies that it is scripted. Alt News performed a keyword search on YouTube and found the source video uploaded by a YouTube channel called Mithila Bazaar on May 16, 2022. The video’s description reads, “All characters and story in this video are fictional and intended for entertainment purposes only.”
The description also mentions the names of the artists. On checking the timeline of this channel, we found that they often make staged videos for entertainment.
The same actors can be seen in a different video. Alt News noticed that their clothes and the location are also the same. However, the script of this video is different. Here, the marriage is interpreted because of the groom’s forced feeding of sweets to the bride. Thus, it establishes that the viral video is scripted and was made for entertainment.
To sum it up, several media outlets circulated a scripted video of a drunk groom offering a wedding garland to a woman standing next to the bride as a real incident.
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