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.

Bihar | A Pakistani flag was hoisted in the Madhubani Sipahi Tola area in Purnea

We reached the suspect’s house after getting the information. The flag has been removed. The matter has been discussed with SDO Purnea. Action will be taken: Pawan Chowdhary, SHO Madhubani pic.twitter.com/xKLeN748Wl

— ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2023

In its bulletin, a CNN News18 reporter said, ‘the Republic Day shocker’ was promptly taken up by the police who reached the location immediately. According to cops, the flag had since been removed. (Archive)

#BreakingNews | #Bihar: Pakistani flag hoisted in Purnia on #RepublicDay; Police claims flag removed now@JournoKSSR shares details with @vinivdvc pic.twitter.com/P3lPBzPBu3

— News18 (@CNNnews18) January 27, 2023

Times Now Navbharat also tweeted a clip of their report on this incident. The clip contains a video interview of a resident of the house, Rehana Parveen, who says that she didn’t know it was a Pakistani flag. She also says that the flag was hoisted on January 26 itself. (Archive)

Bihar के पूर्णिया में Republic Day पर मौके पर फहराया पाकिस्तानी झंडा, पहुंची पुलिस

सब्सक्राइब करें #TimesNowNavbharathttps://t.co/ogFsKfs8b9#TimesNowNavbharatOriginals #TNNOriginals #RepublicDay2023 #RepublicDayIndia #Crime #Purnia #Pakistan #RepublicDay pic.twitter.com/4VgJNDBGvg

— Times Now Navbharat (@TNNavbharat) January 26, 2023

News18 Bihar also tweeted a clip of their reportage of the incident. (Archive)

पूर्णिया में गणतंत्र दिवस के मौके पर फहराया पाकिस्तानी झंडा ! pic.twitter.com/frISxBQqWL

— News18 Bihar (@News18Bihar) January 26, 2023

Other media outlets, including Times of India, Zee News English, ANI Hindi, OpIndia Hindi, Zee Bihar Jharkhand, India TV, India TV Hindi, The New Indian, Mid Day, RSS mouthpiece Organiser Weekly, Times of India Patna and Live_Hindustan also reported on this incident.

Right Wing accounts amplified the claim

Several verified handles tweeted the CNN News 18 reportage. The BJP Andhra Pradesh state secretary Ramesh Naidu Nagothu tweeted that ‘the shameful act’ of hoisting the Pakistani flag in Bihar ‘is beyond condemnation’. Tripura BJP secretary Amit Rakshit condemned the apparent hoisting of the Pakistani flag as well. BJP Gujarat state media co-head Zubin Ashara also tweeted the News 18 report and called it a ‘shameful incident’. Andhra BJP general secretary Vishnu Vardhan Reddy wrote, “Law and order has gone for a toss since the Mahathughbandhan formed gvt in Bihar.”

RVCJ Media tweeted a graphic containing images of the flag. According to the graphic, the police promised of strict action in the matter. The tweet garnered almost 7,000 likes. Twitter handle @BefittingFacts also shared an image of the flag and wrote that “A Pakistani flag was hoisted on a house owned by Mohammad Mubarukuddin”.

Click to view slideshow.

Fact Check

The reader must note that a video shot from an angle below the flag has been used by several media outlets in their reportage. If one looks closely, one might notice that parts of the flag toward the pole are not green in colour. There is a blue patch and then there is a part that is black and white in colour. Below is a screenshot from the Times Now Navbharat reportage which shows the relevant frame. This was also pointed out by a Twitter user in a thread.

This pattern is not present in the Pakistani national flag. The Pakistani national flag has a vertical white stripe on the left with a crescent moon and a star on a green background. Based on the stark differences in pattern, it is quite clear that the flag hoisted at the house in Purnea was not the Pakistani national flag.

Moreover, according to a statement released by Purnea Police on Twitter, their investigation concluded that the flag was not a Pakistani flag but a religious flag which had been hoisted a month ago. (Archive)

आज दिनांक-26.01.2023 संध्या 17:30 बजे सूचना मिली कि मधुबनी टीओपी क्षेत्र में सिपाही टोला में एक व्यक्ति अपने छत के ऊपर किसी अन्य देश का झंडा लगाए हुए हैं। तत्पश्चात सूचना की जांच कराई गई। जांच में पाया गया कि उक्त झंडा एक धार्मिक झंडा है जो करीब एक महीने से वहाँ पर लगाया हुआ है।

— Purnea Police (@PurneaSp) January 26, 2023

On the same day as it tweeted about the incident (that is January 26), The Times of India later published a report headlined ‘Pakistan’s flag not hoisted in Bihar’s Purnia, say police’. The report cites a police statement while saying that a religious flag had been hoisted at a house owned by Mohammad Mubarakuddin which is located adjacent to a local mosque. This confirmation was reiterated by Surendra Kumar Saroj, SDPO Sadar who stated that the religious flag had been put up there a month ago. He also said that the police were trying to identify the persons who spread the rumour that it was a Pakistan flag.

Alt News got in touch with Purnea SP Amir Jawaid who sent us an image of the flag after it was taken down by a police official. The reader can clearly spot the black-and-white part and the blue stripe with prints on it.

We reached out to Dr Anwar Raza Qadri, spokesperson for All India Muslim Jamaat, who explained the significance of the patterns seen on the flag in Islam. According to Qadri, the blue stripe is inspired by the pattern seen on the dome of  Baghdad Sharif Mosque also known as Ghous-E-Azam. The white part with the black zigzag lines has been inspired by the dome of Dargah E Aalahazrat in Bareilly. Below we have compared the patterns on the flag with the domes.

This flag has been waved on several instances in India in the past, especially during the celebration of Eid Milad-Un-Nabi to mark the birth anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam. This flag has been seen in cities like Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Varanasi and New Delhi.

Similar claim made in the past

It is worth noting that a similar claim had been made in November 2019. A video of flags hoisted on the terrace of several buildings in Jalandhar, Punjab, was shared on social media with the claim that these were Pakistani national flags. However, an Alt News fact check found the claims to be misleading. The flags that were seen in the 2019 viral video had a similar pattern with two stripes- one with white prints on a blue background and the other with black lines on a white stripe. Below is a comparison between the religious flag that was seen in Jalandhar in 2019 and the Pakistani national flag. The following image has been taken from the 2019 Alt News fact check.

It is also worth noting that the images that Zee News English used in their report of this incident are old. These images were also used in a Zee Madhya Pradesh Chhattisgarh report dated October 26, 2022. The report, titled ‘मुस्ताक ने छत पर लगाया पाकिस्तानी झंडा, बोला- बच्चे ने की थी जिद; तानाव के बाद एक्शन’, was about a fruit-seller named Mustaq whose 15-year-old child had hoisted the Pakistani flag at their home in the Saria area of Raigarh, Chhattisgarh.

To sum it up, a religious flag that was hoisted atop a house in the Purnea district of Bihar was falsely portrayed by various news outlets as a Pakistani national flag hoisted on the Republic Day. In reality, the Pakistani national flag and the religious flag that was hoisted are starkly different in terms of pattern and colour. The police have also dismissed the viral claims.

The post Misreporting by major news outlets; Pakistan flag was not hoisted in Bihar’s Purnea appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.