It is worth noting that Bihar is infamous for such ‘forced’ marriages, also known as ‘Pakadwa Vivah’, in which eligible grooms with secure government jobs are often kidnapped and forced to marry women related to the perpetrators. Over the past few decades, several such cases from Bihar have come to light.

X account @thenewsbasket shared the video of the man being dragged in front of students on June 6, 2025, with the claim that a government school teacher was taken away for ‘forced marriage’ at gunpoint. At the time this was written, the post had over 800,000 views. (Archive)

बेगूसराय के एक सरकारी स्कूल टीचर को बंदूक की नोक पर पकड़वा कर शादी करवाने के लिए ले जाया जा रहा pic.twitter.com/z1jmyoSGOu

— The News Basket (@thenewsbasket) June 6, 2025

X handle @BasavanIndia also shared the video, questioning the state of law and order in Bihar. (Archive)

The video was also shared by X user @iamharunkhan who claimed this was the ‘ground reality’ in Bihar and not a ‘movie plot’. (Archive)

Fact Check

A quick search using keywords related to the video and claims led us to a March 23, 2025, report published on TV9 Bharatvarsh that had the same video. According to the report, the video was recorded at the Dularpur Math Middle School in the Teghra subdivision of Begusarai and depicts the shooting of a film named ‘Pakadwah Byaah’. The video simply shows a movie scene being shot where a teacher is forcibly dragged away. However, some had raised concerns on whether the film was shot during school hours and the District Education Officer even ordered an inquiry. The principal, cited in the report, had clarified that the filming happened on a Sunday.

We also found a video of the same scene recorded from a different angle in a March 12, 2025, Instagram post uploaded by user @rajanrddfilms, a filmmaker and actor associated with the film ‘Pakadwah Byaah’. The post’s caption also makes it clear that the video is from the shooting of the film.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Rajan Rock (@rajanrddfilms)

To sum up, social media users shared a video of a movie scene being filmed in a school in Bihar with misleading claims that a teacher of a government school in Begusarai was actually kidnapped for marriage.

The post School teacher kidnapped in Bihar’s Begusarai for ‘forced marriage’? No; viral video is from a film shooting appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

On May 20, Mahto was fatally shot outside his home in Sakho village in Bihar state’s ​​Begusarai district, according to news reports and Saurabh Kumar, general secretary of Begusarai District Journalists Association, who spoke to CPJ by telephone. Mahto was returning from a wedding dinner with family members at around 8:45 p.m. when he was shot in the head by four men, who then fled the scene, The Wire reported.

Mahto was a reporter with a local cable station City News, and frequently used Public App, a hyperlocal smartphone-based video application, to post his reports, according to Kumar. Mahto had over 1,300 followers on his Public App account, and his last post was viewed over 29,000 times, according to a review of his page by CPJ.

“Authorities in India’s Bihar state must thoroughly investigate the fatal shooting of journalist Subhash Kumar Mahto, determine whether he was killed for his work, and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “The Bihar government must take steps to protect all journalists working in the state and seek justice for those attacked or killed.”

Kumar told CPJ that the attack could be related to Mahto’s reporting on the illegal alcohol mafia in the region. In 2018, Mahto was arrested for “false news” after he reported on an incident related to the unlawful manufacturing of local liquor, according to Kumar and The Wire report. Manufacturing and consuming alcohol is illegal in Bihar and a punishable offense under state law.

The police have not arrested anyone, but Kumar told CPJ that a person with a known criminal record had been a person of interest. CPJ could not independently verify this claim. Kumar added that a forensic probe was conducted at the site of the murder on Sunday, May 22.

Begsarai superintendent of police Yogesh Kumar did not respond to CPJ’s phone calls requesting comment.

Last year, two other journalists, Avinash Jha and Manish Kumar Singh, were killed in two separate incidents in Bihar, according to CPJ documentation.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.