False claim: Woman’s hair chopped off for not wearing burkha

“If Dont Wear A Burqa This Is The Way A Women Is Punished By Cutting Her Hairs With Daughter In Her Lap. And These Cowards Say They Will Conquer The World? These Moron Mujahids Are The Most Cowards Creatures On Earth,They Can Only Torture Helpless Humans. They Cant Face Real Men” tweeted a social media user Singh Singh(@HatindersinghR) on June 26, 2018, with an attached video. The tweet claims that a woman’s hair was chopped off because she refused to wear a burqa.

If Dont Wear A Burqa This Is The Way A Women Is Punished By Cutting Her Hairs With Daughter In Her Lap.
And These Cowards Say They Will Conquer The World?
These Moron Mujahids Are The Most Cowards Creatures On Earth,They Can Only Torture Helpless Humans.
They Cant Face Real Men pic.twitter.com/sNnrdlqkYn

— ☬ SINGH ਸਿੰਘ ☬ 🇮🇳 (@HatindersinghR) June 26, 2018

The above tweet has been retweeted more than 1800 times and ‘liked’ more than 1300 times. It may be noted that the audio in this clip is unclear. Another tweet from Akhil Agrwal(चाय वाला) (@akhil_agrwal) was retweeted more than 750 times and has been liked more than 600 times. It was also shared on Facebook.

Where is the video from?

Googling the phrase as seen in the video, “man cuts off woman’s hair” throws a list of articles, in which a Daily Pakistan article shows a frame of the video. The article refers to a Facebook post which has now been deleted. According to the article, this is allegedly a video of a husband who is cutting her wife’s hair for cheating on him with his nephew. It further states, “The shocking episode, according to the post, took place in Guarapuava, Brazil and the woman, who got her hairs cut, was cheating on her husband with her nephew. They are gypsies. The husband’s name is Fabrício Yanovich”.

For further verification, we did a Google search with the similar text in Portuguese, “homem corta o cabelo da mulher” (man cuts woman’s hair – Google translation). This led us to a video titled, ‘Mulher tem os cabelos cortados na frente da filha (Woman has her hair cut in front of her daughter -translation)’ uploaded on January 18, 2017. It has received more than 50000 views and more than 220 comments in Portuguese. The sound in this video is audible.

Moreover, an article was published by Diretão da Verdade(Truth Directory) on November 12, 2016, with the sub-heading, “Ele foi traído e pra se vingar cortou o cabelo da esposa (He was betrayed and for his revenge cut his wife’s hair -Google translation)“. This is the earliest article we found which refers to the incident. A screenshot of the same has been posted below.

We also found another article of April, 2017 published by Blasting News titled, “Marido faz vídeo cortando cabelo de sua esposa por traição (Husband makes video cutting his wife’s hair for betrayal – Google translation)”, with the same claim.

In both the articles which have been posted in Portuguese, it has been claimed that the incident took place over an extra-marital relation. There is no reference to the claims made in the tweet- that this couple is a Muslim couple and that her hair was chopped off because she refused to wear a burqa. Moreover, the audio of the clip posted by Singh Singh is not the original audio.

Alt News also spoke with Vandan Kumar who teaches Portuguese in New Delhi. He confirmed that the language spoken in the video was Portuguese with a Brazilian accent. He further stated that the man in the video was accusing the woman of adultery. He also stated that there was no part of the video which would suggest that the woman was being punished for not wearing a burkha.

In the past, we have seen videos from different countries and regions being spread with false claims which constantly target a particular religious minority. For example, in 2017, a video of a Guatemalan woman being lynched was passed off as an assault on a Marwadi woman by a Muslim mob. Such videos with false claims are shared with the objective of inciting communal sentiments. Social media users should be circumspect with regard to such provocative claims.