By Nivedita Niranjankumar
A viral video claiming a man wearing a black hat is killing women in Mumbai, is fake and part of a promotion of a new film called 'Maarrich'.
The viral video made to look like a CCTV footage shows a man wearing a black hat and a black coat killing a woman and then dragging her body behind parked vehicles.
It is being shared with captions claiming there is a "hatman killer" in Mumbai and the incident happened in Andheri, a suburb in the city. It was posted on an Instagram account with the caption, "A very Serious and Dangerous incident took place in Mumbai. A young girl lost her life. #HatmanKillerInMumbai ruthlessly killing her, watch out"
Ankit Kumar, a journalist with News18 tweeted the video with text in Hindi that translates to, "A heart wrenching video from Mumbai...where a man is seen attacking a woman". Kumar tagged the Mumbai police asking if the video is true or fake.
While going through the video we noticed the word 'Maarrich' written in the bottom left before the video started playing with double A and double R.
Using this we ran a search for Maarrich + Hat Man killer and found an Instagram post by papparazi Viral Bhayani where he shared more photos of a similar looking man wearing a hat and a coat walking on empty streets.
In the photos posted by Bhayani, we again noticed the word 'Maarrich' on the bottom left corner.
The font used for 'Maarrich' in Bhayani's post was different from the font seen in the viral video, with this font having blood stains on some letters but the word was spelt the same way.
We then ran a search for Maarrich and found news stories from January 2021 about actor Tusshar Kapoor announcing a new movie with the same name.
We looked through the actor's verified Instagram handle and found a post from September 13 where he shared a teaser video of his upcoming movie - Maarrich.
The font of the movie seen in the post by Kapoor is the same as that in the photos being shared with posts of Hat Man Killer In Mumbai.
Below is a comparison.
We also found tweets by verified accounts with photos of a similar looking character dressed in a hat and a coat with captions clearly linking the video to the movie Maarrich.
Additionally a search for CCTV footage of woman murdered in Andheri by Hatman killer as claimed, did not yield any relevant search results. A tweet by the official handle of the Mumbai police also called the video fake and asked people to refrain from sharing and creating panic.
We then reached out to Maheswar Reddy, Deputy Commissioner, Mumbai police for Andheri region who said that no such incident of an attack on a woman had been reported in the area. "We have registered a Non Cognisable offence against the viral video. It is a fake video," he said. Reddy did not respond to questions about it being a video to promote a movie.
According to reports, actor Tusshar Kapoor is set to play a police officer in the upcoming movie Maarrich.
