Fact-Check: Old Visuals of Shah Rukh Khan at an Airport Viral as Recent

The picture dates back to 2019, which predates the reported incident of Shah Rukh Khan with the Customs department.

Fact Check | The image showing Shahrukh Khan getting checked by security dates back to 2019.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

An old image showing Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan getting checked by security officials is going viral on the internet.

What does the claim say? : The image is being shared to claim that it is recent and from Mumbai Airport, where customs officials allegedly stopped the actor and his team for carrying luxurious watches.

An archive of the tweet can be seen here. 

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

Archives of similar claims can be found here, here, here, and here.

What is the truth? : The image can be traced back to March 2019. The actor was seen attending an Indian Premier League (IPL) match at Eden Gardens between Punjab Kings (PBKS) and his co-owned team, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).

How did we find out the truth? : We searched for the video on YouTube using the keywords "Shahrukh Khan at security check".

• We found a video on an unverified channel called 'Mur$alim Vlogs', which showed the actor wearing the same attire and going through a security check.

• It was uploaded on 29 March 2019. The description of the video said, "After winning the match back to Mumbai".

On comparing both the images, we found they are from the same incident.

(Source: YouTube video/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)

Taking a clue from the description, we searched for games that took place during this period.

• We found that the IPL had started around this time, and a match between KKR and PBKS was scheduled on 27 March 2019 at Eden Gardens, Kolkata.

• In a report published in The Indian Express, it mentioned that Khan was present during the match and even celebrated his team's win with the fans by coming to the ground.

• It contained some more pictures of Khan during the match and was credited to PTI and AP.

• We also found similar pictures from 2019 in the archives of PTI by using the keywords "Shah Rukh Khan Kolkata".

Further, we found a video on Khan's official Twitter handle taken from a side angle which shows him celebrating wearing the same attire as seen in the viral clip.

What happened at the Mumbai airport? : Several news reports said Khan, along with his team, was stopped by the Customs department at the airport over some expensive watches that they were carrying in their baggage.

We also found a report published by The Hindu. It was credited to PTI. 

• It mentioned that according to an official, Khan and five members of his team were stopped by the Customs official at the airport for not paying customs duty for six expensive watches.

• As the payment counter was not operational at the General Aviation Terminal (GAT), Khan's bodyguard Ravi Singh was escorted to Terminal 2, where he paid the customs duty of Rs 6.88 lakhs.

Where was the actor returning from? : The actor was returning from an event in Sharjah where he was honoured with the Cultural Narrative award and Global Icon of Cinema.

Conclusion: Evidently, an old image from 2019 is being falsely shared, linking it to the recent incident at Mumbai Airport.

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