Fact-Check: Video of Nepali Wedding Falsely Shared as 'Sati Practice' in India

This video shows bidai, a Nepali wedding ritual where the bride leaves from her paternal home after the wedding.

Fact-check: A wedding ritual in Nepal is being shared with a false claim about 'sati practice' still continuing in India.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video showing a woman dressed as a bride being carried in a carriage while crying is going viral on social media.

What’s the claim?: The viral video carries Arabic text, which translates to “if her husband dies, they bury her alive with him.”

The claim further states that the video shows one of the tribes of India where the tradition of burying the bride alive after her groom dies is still practised.

An archive can be seen here.

(Source: Favecbook/Screenshot)

(Archives of similar claims can be seen here and here.)

What's the truth?: The video is from Nepal and shows the Nepali wedding tradition known as 'bidai', where the bride leaves her paternal home after the wedding.

How did we find out the truth?: We divided the video into multiple keyframes and ran some of them on reverse image search on Google and came across the video posted as an Instagram post.

• The video was uploaded on 18 May by a user named 'Laxu Sapkota'.

• The caption stated that it showed the traditional marriage ceremony from Bajhang, Nepal, where girls cry while leaving their homes and parents after the wedding.

• We also found another video of the bride on the same carriage with a caption that translates to, Bajhang wedding.

• The account also carried other videos (watch here, here and here) from the same wedding, which showed the bride seen in the video.

We reached out to the photographer: Laxu Sapkota, the photographer, confirmed to us that he is the original creator of the viral video and stated that it is now being shared with false claims.

He added, “The video is shot during a traditional wedding ceremony in Bajhang, Farwest, Nepal, and shows a new bride crying on their wedding day as she is about to leave her parent's home permanently."

Similar visuals of the Nepali tradition: We checked for more visuals from Nepali weddings and found an image of the farewell ceremony on Getty Images.

• The image dates back to 23 January 2003 and shows a bride sitting in a similar carriage.

• The caption of the image said that it showed the former King of Nepal, Gyanendra's daughter Princess Prearana during a farewell (bidai) ceremony in Kathmandu.

The image shows a similar Nepali wedding tradition.

(Source: Getty Images/Screenshot)

• On performing a keyword search, we came across a YouTube video that showed the Nepali tradition where the bride was carried in a carriage for her farewell.

• The search results also led us to similar images uploaded on Facebook, which showed family of the bride carrying her in a carriage, while they can be seen crying.

• The caption also said, "Traditional Nepali wedding: Father carrying bride daughter on doli."

The post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

'Sati Practice' in India:

• Sati was a funeral custom practised in India where a widow immolates herself on her husband's pyre.

• The last known case of Sati was recorded in 1987, when a woman known as Roop Kanwar jumped into her husband's funeral pyre.

• Sati was outlawed in India in 1987 through the Sati (Prevention) Act.

Conclusion: A wedding ritual in Nepal is being shared with a false claim about 'sati practice' still continuing in India.

(Note: The story has been updated to add a quote from the photographer.)

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