PTI Fact Check: Bodybuilder kicking prize not from India, video from Bangladesh shared with false claim

However, a fact check showed the bodybuilder was a Bangladeshi furious that he was not declared winner and given a mixer blender as the runner-up prize.According to the 27-second video shared in a Facebook post on January 5 this year, the bodybuilder belonged to the SC community.

A video of a bodybuilder angrily kicking his prize was shared on social media with the claim that he was an Indian and protesting caste discrimination. However, a fact check showed the bodybuilder was a Bangladeshi furious that he was not declared winner and given a mixer blender as the runner-up prize.

According to the 27-second video shared in a Facebook post on January 5 this year, the bodybuilder belonged to the SC community. It claimed that he was asked to go to a corner on the stage at the award function of the bodybuilding event. The post had more than 50 likes and comments.

The English translation of the Hindi post reads: “Well done, my lion, just keep kicking this #casteist mentality; one day we will break the caste tradition. Befitting reply given by him for trying to make a bodybuilder belonging to the SC community stand in the corner of the stage despite being the winner. You have not broken this (mixer), you have also broken their ego.” The fact check team started with an InVid Tool search to find details and keyframes of the footage. A subsequent Google Reverse Image search on one keyframe led to an extended version of the video posted on Facebook by a user named Jahid Hasan Shuvo.

The user’s profile showed Shuvo to be a bodybuilder from Bangladesh. He posted an extended version of the video on his profile page on December 23 last year. It had 11 million views, 422k likes, and 31k comments.

A Google search with the keywords “Jahid Hasan Shuvo kicked prize Bangladesh” led to a Dhaka Tribune report published on December 26 last year.

The report, headlined “Bodybuilder Jahid gets lifetime ban for bizarre protest”, said he was banned for life by the Bangladesh Bodybuilding Federation for his behaviour at an award function. He kicked his prize -- a blender machine -- in front of everyone at a national competition. The ban came within two days of the function, it said.

“Yes, the report is correct. Jahid reacted at the national bodybuilding competition because he was unhappy with the jury’s decision to declare him the runner-up and give a blender machine as the prize. He is facing a lifetime ban for his behaviour at the event,” Shahed Siddique, head of input in Bangladesh’s Independent Television, told PTI when contacted for more details of the incident.

The video was from Bangladesh and had no caste discrimination angle. The Facebook post claiming he was an Indian was false.

Readers can contact the PTI Fact Check on WhatsApp Number +91-8130503759 to share a claim or social media post they think needs to be fact checked.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)