Claim: Clip allegedly shows a drunk man from Pench, Madhya Pradesh petting a Bengal Tiger. .
Conclusion: The claim is false and the video AI generated. There has been no official reports or confirmations from Pench Tiger Reserve about any tiger escaping. Moreover, Deputy Director Rajneesh Singh has clarified that this video is not from Pench Tiger Reserve.
Rating: Totally False — 
Several social media users have claimed that a drunk man was petting a Bengal Tiger that had been let loose from Pench Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh.
Verified X user ‘Sarcasm1105’ shared a 10-second video clip purportedly showing Raju Patel, a 52-year-old laborer from Pench, Madhya Pradesh, India, drunkenly mistaking a Bengal tiger for a “friendly cat” during a late-night encounter. View the post below:
Power of DESI DAARU ..
In Pench, India, Raju Patel, slightly drunk after a late-night card game, mistook a Bengal tiger for a friendly cat. He casually patted it, offered his liquor, and lived to tell the tale. Forest officials later rescued the tiger. Raju’s now a local legend… pic.twitter.com/rmgzkmJgnz
— Sarcastic Sage (@Sarcasm1105) October 29, 2025
Same claim is made on Nov 2, 2025. See the post here:
A 52-year-old man, Raju Patel, was recorded on video attempting to pet a sub-adult Bengal tiger in a village in Pench, India, in October 2025. Patel, who had been drinking, mistook the tiger for a “big cat”.
The incident occurred in a village near the Pench Tiger Reserve in… pic.twitter.com/E8Zy5fdVhl
— WithAlvin 🇬🇭 (@withAlvin__) November 2, 2025
Similar claims have been made which can be viewed here and here.
FACT CHECK
DigitEYE India decided to investigate this claim and found that it is false. The video is AI generated and no such incident occurred near Pench, Madhya Pradesh. There are no credible reports or evidence of any tiger escaping the Pench Tiger Reserve.
We first conducted a reverse image search of the video but did not find any credible source authenticating the claim. There has been no notice from the officials about a tiger escaping from any of the Pench Tiger Reserve. Furthermore, no media outlet has written about a wild Bengal tiger being spotted in a village near Pench.
Our search took us to a report published by The Sootr on October 29, 2025. The report written in Hindi when translated reads that when the reporter “contacted Rajneesh Singh, Deputy Director of the Pench Tiger Reserve, to verify the video and the incident, Singh dismissed the video as fake and not on a road within the Pench Tiger Reserve. View a section of the report below –
Lastly, when we put sections of the video into an AI detector tool, the results proved that the video was generated by AI. View the screenshot of the results below –
Thus, the claim is false.
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