New Delhi: Amid growing controversy over the release of Bangladeshi fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman from the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) squad for the upcoming IPL season, a video claiming to show actor and KKR owner Shah Rukh Khan defending the player has gone viral on social media.

The video allegedly shows Shah Rukh Khan making strong remarks in support of Mustafizur Rahman’s inclusion in KKR and criticising industrialist Gautam Adani. The clip surfaced as diplomatic tensions between India and Bangladesh escalated, with reports claiming Bangladesh has banned IPL broadcasts.

Claim

A Facebook user shared the video on January 3, claiming that Shah Rukh Khan defended Mustafizur Rahman and lashed out at critics, urging them to stop politicising the issue. The video also purportedly shows him making comments against Gautam Adani.

Investigation

The PTI Fact Check Desk analysed the viral clip using the InVID verification tool and extracted multiple keyframes. These frames were examined using Google Lens, which led to several social media posts sharing the same video with identical claims.

Further analysis traced the visuals to a video uploaded on the official Talks at Google YouTube channel. The original footage dates back to October 2, 2014, and shows Shah Rukh Khan in a fireside chat with Google CEO Sundar Pichai at the Googleplex in California, where he was promoting his film Happy New Year.

The background visuals in the viral clip matched the 2014 video, confirming that the footage was old and unrelated to the current IPL controversy.
 

The Fact Check Desk also extracted the audio from the viral video and ran it through the AI audio detection tool Aurigin. The analysis indicated that the voice used in the clip was artificially generated.

In addition, a keyword search found no credible media reports suggesting that Shah Rukh Khan had made any recent comments on Mustafizur Rahman’s exit from the KKR squad. Had such remarks been genuine, they would have been widely reported.

Conclusion

The PTI Fact Check Desk concluded that the viral video was digitally manipulated. The visuals are from a 2014 interview of Shah Rukh Khan with Sundar Pichai, while the audio was artificially created and overlaid to falsely link him to the IPL 2026 controversy involving Mustafizur Rahman.