A nine-second long video clip is has gone viral on social media, showing a man assaulting a puffed rice vendor. In the video, the man is seen overturning the box hanging from the snack seller’s neck and pouring all the food items onto the vendor’s face before they scatter onto the street. As this purported attack unfolds, the vendor stares at the man helplessly.
The video was posted by X user Alka Maurya on September 16 and has garnered more than 2,85,000 views and shared over 1,500 times till publication time. The caption of the post, translated from Hindi, reads: “(He) must be feeling so proud after doing something like this.” (Archive)
कितना गर्व महसूस कर रहा होगा ऐसे करके हैं ना …… pic.twitter.com/F6upi4I2ZD
— Alka Maurya (@MauryaAlka76391) September 16, 2026
Apart from Maurya, film actor Kamaal R Khan posted the same video with the caption: “How will you fix this mentality which has developed in last 10 years. India can’t be fixed now.” (Archive)
How will you fix this mentality which has developed in last 10 years. India can’t be fixed now. pic.twitter.com/o2T2AJzGoj
— KRK (@kamaalrkhan) September 17, 2026
Other social media users circulated the viral clip with similar captions, condemning the man seen purportedly attacking the vendor.
As a billboard visible in the video reads ‘Welcome to Patna Junction’, the Patna police was tagged in the comment section of certain posts, requesting them to take stringent action against the man who allegedly assaulted the vendor.
Fact Check
To verify the authenticity of the viral video clip, we ran reverse image searches on several relevant keyframes. It led us to a video posted by content creator Sonu Paswan on Instagram, where he has 179,000 followers. This is the now-viral clip.
Paswan has a presence on Facebook and YouTube as well. And he mentions in his bio on both these platforms that he makes ’emotional’ videos on ‘poverty’. His Facebook bio also states that he is from Darbhanga, Bihar.
In all of his videos on Facebook, Paswan himself can be seen playing different “poor characters” being harassed and attacked by others as he helplessly accepts his fate. This further confirms that these are dramatised clips.
On September 18, Friday, Paswan posted a video on his Instagram page, where he clarified that the viral clip does not depict a real attack on him, but is, in fact, a prepared skit. He also states that he enacts emotional scenes on poverty as ‘content’ on his social media channels. “I want to tell you that in the video you are seeing, the vendor is me and the man who is attacking me is part of my team. I want to let you know that we, as a team, make emotional videos on poverty. I request you to take this video purely as entertainment, and not believe that this is real,” he said.
The caption of this post reads, translated from Hindi, “Because we make emotional videos on the poor…You all give me so much love…but you guys have taken this clip to heart. I know I have hurt you guys with this video. Please delete the video from your channel…I request you not to share this video any further.”
View this post on Instagram
He shared the same clarification on his YouTube page.
After the clip started going viral and attracted significant backlash, on September 17, most of his videos on YouTube and all of his previous videos on Instagram were deleted.
Moreover, Paswan also posted videos of the person who is acting as the attacker in the video, also clarifying the viral clip is indeed a skit, on his Instagram and YouTube pages. “The video you guys are watching and getting emotional and taking to heart is just our content…its not real…please stop roasting this video. Because of you [sharing the viral clip as real] all my efforts have gone to waste, all my videos, over 300 videos…I have had to delete them all. I request you to keep supporting and loving us,” the person who plays the attacker in the viral clip states in the video.
View this post on Instagram
To sum up, the viral video of a puffed rice seller being harassed is a dramatised skit or a scripted video. The uploader, Sonu Paswan, can be identified in several of his videos acting in different roles. He has himself put out a clarification stating that the viral clip does not show a real incident.
