By Anmol Alphonso
An old video of a young woman being beaten by a group of men in Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh is being shared with a false claim that it shows a Dalit girl being beaten up by Hindutva extremists.
BOOM found that the incident in the viral video is from June 2021 when two tribal women were beaten up by their relatives for talking to their cousins on the phone.
In the viral video, a woman can be seen chased by a group of men with sticks in their hands beating her up as she cries for help from bystanders standing around.
The caption of the video when translated reads, "A Dalit girl is brutally and mercilessly beaten by a group of Hindu extremists and members of the Hindutva extremist organization. India is the only country in the world in which the extremist Hindu wing still commits all methods of gross violations of human rights, especially against Muslims and Dalits."
(In Arabic - تتعرض فتاة من طبقة الداليت للضرب المبرح وبلا رحمة، من قِبل مجموعة من المتطرفين الهندوس وأعضاء من منظمة الهندوتفا المتطرفة.. الهند الدولة الوحيدة في العالم التي لا يزال الجناح الهندوسي المتطرف، يرتكب فيها جميع أساليب الانتهاكات الجسيمة للحقوق الانسان، خاصة ضد المسلمين والداليت.)
BOOM has not included the video due to its graphic nature.
The video has garnered around 79.3 thousand views on Twitter as of writing this story
The same video is also being shared with another misleading claim that a Dalit woman was beaten for bathing in a river. "Trigger Warning....This Dalit girl is being beaten mercilessly for bathing in the river and contaminating the water. 75 years of Independent India, where water has more importance than women," the twitter account @jatt0935 tweeted."
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral video is from June 2021 from an incident in Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh where two sisters were beaten up by their relatives merely for talking to their cousins over the phone.
We broke the video into keyframes and ran a reverse image search using Google Images which results showing tweets with the caption stating the incident happened in Madhya Pradesh where two sisters were beaten up by their relatives. Taking a hint from this we searched with the keywords "Dhar district young woman beaten" and found news reports on the incident from July 2021.
The visuals in the news reports match the visuals and sequence seen in the viral video.
Click here to view
Two tribal women, who are cousins, were tortured in full public view by their family members because they were apparently talking to their maternal cousins - enraging the family reported NDTV on July 4, 2021. The report further stated that the incident happened in Pipalwa village in Tanda, Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh and that many onlookers watched the crime and even recorded multiple videos of the incident.
The Times Of India reported on July 5, 2021, quoting Tanda police station in-charge Vijay Vaskale who stated that, “Initially, the girls were reluctant to complain against their family members and we registered a case. They, however, gave their statements at the police station later, based on which further action was initiated. Seven persons have been booked in the case.”
Additionally, according to the PI Vaskale the incident happened on June 25, 2021, and the two victims aged 19 and 20 years were initially fearful of registering a complaint. According to the police the seven people that were arrested included one woman's mother and brother.
