Kathmandu, March 4 (Hikmat Acharya/Shiva Basnet, TechPana Fact Check) For a few days, a picture has been going viral on the social media Facebook. The picture shows an elderly Sikh man with a white beard and mustache wearing a very large and long white turban. A rural setting can be seen in the background.
Some Nepali and Indian Facebook pages and Instagram accounts have claimed that this picture is of Avtar Singh Mauni of India and that he holds the record for wearing the world’s longest turban. However, TechPana Fact Check has confirmed that the photo being made viral as Avtar Singh Mauni was created by AI. Additionally, it was found that there is no record under the name of Avtar Singh Mauni of India in the Guinness World Records.
CLAIM
On Thursday, May 1, 2025, at 11:44 AM, a Facebook page named ‘Butwal बुटवल’ posted a photo of an elderly Sikh man with a beard and mustache wearing a very large and long white turban.
Its caption read, “The record for wearing the world’s tallest turban is held by Avtar Singh Moni of Punjab. This turban weighs 45 kilograms and its length is 645 meters. It takes 5-6 hours to wear this turban.”
As of the preparation of this report, the post has received over 3100 reactions, 141 comments, and 34 shares. See Original Link and Archive Link, along with the screenshot.
INVESTIGATION
TechPana Fact Check Desk searched Facebook using the keyword ‘पगडी’ (turban) for more information. During this process, it was found that many other pages had posted with similar posts and captions.
Similarly, on the same day, the Facebook page named ‘National Online News’ also posted at 12:11 PM with the same caption and photo. See Original Post and Archive Post, along with the screenshot.
The Facebook page named NayaPusta[.]com posted the same photo on May 1, 2025, at 12:40 PM with the caption, ‘The record for wearing the world’s tallest turban is held by Avtar Singh Moni of Punjab. This turban weighs 45 kilograms and its length is 645 meters. It takes 5-6 hours to wear this turban.’ As of the preparation of this report, the post has received 854 reactions, 15 comments, and 6 shares. See Original Link and Archive Link, along with the screenshot.
The Facebook page named Shova Thapa was found to have posted the same photo on May 1, 2025, at 1:23 PM with the caption, ‘The record for wearing the world’s tallest turban is held by Avtar Singh Moni of Punjab. This turban weighs 45 kilograms and its length is 6.45 meters. It takes 5-6 hours to wear this turban.’ As of the preparation of this report, the post has received 8900 reactions, 358 comments, and 143 shares. See Original Link and Archive Link, along with the screenshot.
Similarly, Facebook accounts named Mahbub Alam (Original Link and Archive Link), Biwas Pantha (Original Link and Archive Link) have also posted with the same claim.
Pages named Jokes Nepal (Original Link and Archive Link) and ‘NAJ Entertainment’ (Original Link and Archive Link) have also posted with the same claim.
A Facebook page named Viral Sanchar has made a video reading the caption mentioned above. The video, posted on May 2, 2025, has received over 55 thousand reactions, 225 comments, over 735 shares, and over 1.8 million views. See Original Video and Archive Video.
After finding that various Nepali Facebook pages posted the photo of the elderly man with the same post and caption, the TechPana Fact Check Desk translated the caption into Hindi and found that some Hindi pages also posted with the same claim.
Additionally, the Fact Check Desk performed Google Reverse Image Search, Yandex, and Bing searches on the photo. During this process, it was found that various YouTube channels had posted the same photo as Shorts. However, no media outlet was found to have created news based on that specific photo.
Then, the photo was examined using a magnifier. During this process, fewer fingers were visible on the person in the photo. Screenshot is shown at the below.
Additionally, the legs of the horse-like object seen in his background also appeared unnatural. See the screenshot below.
After all these processes, we uploaded the photo to Hive Moderation, a tool that detects whether a photo is AI-generated, to check. The tool indicated a 99.4% probability that the photo was created using AI or deepfake technology. According to the tool, there is a high probability that this photo was generated by Stable Diffusion. On a scale of 1, the score for being generated by Stable Diffusion is 0.98. See the screenshot below.
After confirming that the photo was AI-generated, the TechPana Fact Check Desk analyzed the caption. For this, we set out to verify the claims: whether Avtar Singh Mauni of Punjab, as mentioned in the caption, holds any record related to turbans? If so, does it weigh 45 kg? What is its length, and does it take five to six hours to wear?
On the official website of Guinness World Records, it was found that the record for a turban was set by Major Singh of India on December 1, 2010. He set the record by wearing a 400-meter long turban. See Link and Screenshot.
The name ‘Avtar Singh Mauni’ was not found on the Guinness World Records website. However, back in 2014, Indian media outlet NDTV, British media outlets Daily Mail and Telegraph, America’s New York Post, among others, mentioned that Avtar Singh Mauni wore the heaviest and longest turban. According to them, the turban worn by Avtar Singh was 645 meters long and weighed 100 pounds (45.35 kg).
However, those media outlets also mentioned that Avtar Singh was preparing to register his name in the GuinnessWorld Records. They mentioned that if the turban he wore was indeed 100 pounds in weight and 645 meters long, he would break Major Singh’s record. But, since then, none of those three media outlets have mentioned that ‘Avtar Singh Mauni’ registered his name in Guinness World Records.
CLAIM
The person seen in the photo is Avtar Singh Mauni and he holds the record for the tallest turban.
CLAIMANTS
Facebook pages and accounts including ‘Butwal बटवल’, Shova Thapa, Viral Sanchar, Jokes Nepal, NAJ Entertainment, Nayapusta[.]com, National Online News, Mahbub Alam, Biwas Pantha.
FACT
The photo of a man wearing a tall turban, going viral as that of India’s Avtar Singh Mauni, is AI-generated. News about Avtar Singh Mauni wearing a 645-meter long and 45-kilogram turban appeared around 2014. However, his name is not in Guinness World Records.
CONCLUSION
The photo posted by Facebook pages and accounts including ‘Butwal बटवल’, Shova Thapa, Viral Sanchar, Jokes Nepal, NAJ Entertainment, Nayapusta Dotcom, National Online News, Mahbub Alam, Biwas Pantha claiming it to be Avtar Singh Mauni is AI-generated. He does not hold the record for the tallest turban at all. Around 2014, Indian and international media reported on Avtar Singh Mauni wearing the heaviest and longest turban. Those media outlets mentioned that he was preparing to register his name in the Guinness Book of World Records. However, there is no update about him since then. His name is not on the official Guinness World Records website. The person holding the Guinness World Record for wearing the heaviest and longest turban is Major Singh. He set the record in 2010 by wearing a turban weighing 35 kg (which was 400 meters long when unwrapped). Although the Guinness Book holds other turban records, the record for the longest and heaviest turban remains in Major Singh’s name.
FEEDBACK
You can send social media posts that need to be fact-checked to our website, social media handles (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, LinkedIn), or [email protected]. For any feedback or suggestions regarding fact-checking, please send us an email.
पछिल्लो अध्यावधिक: बैशाख २०, २०८२ २:२४
सामाग्री श्रोत :
टेक पाना
