By Nivedita Niranjankumar
Marathi news outlets including ABP, News18 Lokmat, NDTV and Hindustan Times Marathi misreported that the minor accused in the Pune Porsche crash made an expletive-filled rap song about getting bail easily despite two people being killed in the accident.
BOOM found that the rap song was made by an Instagram account Cringistaan2, run by a Delhi based youngster Aryan Neekhara and not the detained minor accused in the Pune rash driving case. The rap video was posted by Neekhara who runs multiple accounts, all of them posting dark humour memes and reels showing him pulling provocative pranks on people in public spaces.
Two IT engineers, Aneesh Awadhiya (24) and Ashwini Koshta (25) were killed after a speeding Porsche allegedly driven by a 17-and-a-half-year-old boy in an inebriated state hit their motorcycle at Pune’s Kalyani Nagar junction in the wee hours of May 19, 2024. The minor was caught by locals and friends of the victims and handed to the Pune Police who after filing a case presented him before the Juvenile Justice (JJ) board, who in turn granted bail to the minor.
There was massive outrage over the minor being granted bail on lenient terms including writing a "300 word essay" on road safety and a 15-day volunteering with the traffic to "study traffic rules".
The 17-year-old accused is the son of Vishal Agarwal, who runs a prominent construction company Brahma Realty and Infrastructure. The minor's bail has since been revoked and he is presently in an observation home. Following protests and allegations of mishandling and political involvement, the Pune Police registered a second FIR against the accused's father Vishal Agarwal and the managers and owners of the pubs where the accused was drinking with his friends.
ABP Majha, the Marathi channel of ABP news published video and web stories claiming the minor accused had made a rap song filled with expletives and gloating that he was granted bail easily and that he would repeat the act.
The story was uploaded in Marathi with the headline roughly translating to, "Ek Din Mein Mujhe Mil Gayi Bail... Fir Se Dikhaunga Sadak Pe Khel. Pune Builder's Son's Gloating, Annoying Act After The Accident, Abusive Rap Song After Getting Bail
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The same false claim was published by other Marathi news outlets namely, NDTV Marathi, HT Marathi and News18Lokmat. Some outlets also called the video a deepfake.
Also Read:The Problem With Wrongly Labelling Real Or Edited Videos As 'Deepfakes'
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that video was not made by the 17-year-old accused but by a popular meme Instagram account Cringistaan2.
We first found a tweet calling out media outlets for misreporting the source of the video and using this we ran a search on Instagram and found the account, which has since deleted the video.
The display picture on the account matches the person in the viral video singing the rap. A comparison of the same can be seen below.
The account with more than 66k followers posts meme content, most of them offensive in nature and also makes reels pulling pranks on people in public places. The account on May 24, also uploaded a second rap song about Pune car crash. In the second rap, also filled with profant, uploaded on his Instagram Stories, the youngster purposely claimed he is the minor accused. He also attempted to confuse people about his identity in subsequent Stories with text in Hindi that roughly translates to, "Drive a Swift. If you can't afford a Porsche like me, then why do you attempt high speed driving"
A search for the account also led us to a YouTube channel run by the same person and several other accounts including Cringistaan2, where he identified himself as Aryan Neekhara
The same person can be seen in reels uploaded by both the accounts and in a YouTube account by the same name
According to a report by the May 22, 2024 Pune Mirror report, the minor accused was sent to a rehabilitation home on June 5. The same was also confirmed in a video of the accused's mother, shared by Marathi news Sakal, where she clarified that her son has not made the viral rap video.
BOOM could not independently confirm the full name of the person who made the rap, but was able to confirm that it was not made by the accused in the Pune Porsche crash case.
