Old video from Colombia of man atop a tower shared with false communal claim

By: Soham Shah
June 16 2023

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Context

A video of a man atop an electricity tower getting electrocuted and falling down has been shared on Twitter by several users with the claim that he had climbed the tower to offer Namaz (Islamic prayers). Twitter user Deepak Deshpande (@ddtimes) shared the video from his verified account with the text (originally posted in Hindi): "After happily reciting Nawaz on top of a bus, train, plane road etc. This Maulana climbed on an electricity pole to offer Namaz to be closer to the almighty. So, almighty called him to show heaven. Pray wisdom prevails. Prayers are divine.”

In Fact

We used InVID to break the video into multiple keyframes and ran a reverse image search on them. This led us to a report on the Spanish website El Callejero. The report was published on May 14, 2018, and shared a screenshot from the video in question. According to the report, the video is from a Colombian town called Barranquilla.

The report identified the person seen in the video as Víctor José Arroyo González, who was hearing and speech impaired. The report claimed in the past, the man had climbed on power stations and threatened to jump.

Using these clues, we ran a keyword search that led to two more reports, one from the American news outlet Telemundo and the other from the English tabloid Metro. These reports were also published in May 2018 and mentioned similar details along with screenshots from the video. The Metro report claimed that 20-year-old González died after accidentally touching a live wire while trying to get down from the tower.

Logically Facts has emailed the Colombian Police for further confirmation. The story will be updated if and when we get a reply. 

The Verdict

We mark the claim false as there is no evidence to show the video is of a Muslim man or a Maulana(Islamic preacher) offering Namaz on the electricity tower. The video is five years old and is from Colombia.