Clip shows teachers hitting pupil in India's Haryana, not Ayodhya temple officials 'beating Dalit boy'

Published on January 11, 2024 at 06:43
3 min read
By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India

Ahead of the opening of a new temple in Ayodhya that has come to symbolise India's rising tide of Hindu nationalism, a graphic video was shared in social media posts that falsely claimed it showed organisers beating a "Dalit" -- someone from the bottom stratum of Hinduism's caste system. The video was in fact filmed in a different northern Indian state and shows a pair of teachers hitting a boy for allegedly disrupting a dance during a religious festival. Local police told AFP the boy is not from the Dalit community, and an investigation is underway.

"Vishnu, a Dalit boy, was beaten by the organisers for throwing flowers during the Ram temple ceremony in Ayodhya," reads part of the Hindi-language caption of a video shared on Facebook here on December 26, 2023.

The caption refers to a new temple dedicated to the Hindu deity Ram, which has been built on the ground where a mosque stood for centuries before it was torn down by Hindu zealots in a campaign backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party.

Muslim residents of Ayodhya in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, remembering the deadly riots that accompanied the demolition, have been wary of its renewed atmosphere of religious fervour (archived link).

But for many more, the project is both a means of restoring Ayodhya to the glory of its depiction in ancient Hindu texts and proof of Modi's commitment to defending India's majority faith just months ahead of national elections.

The caption appears to mimic how some people discriminate against Dalits, and concludes: "And they say they will create a Hindu nation."

Screenshot of the false Facebook post, captured on January 5, 2024

The video was shared with similar claims on social media platform X here, and elsewhere on Facebook here and here.

The video, however, was not filmed in Ayodhya and is unrelated to the opening of the new temple.

Not in Ayodhya, not a Dalit

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the video led to the same footage used in a Hindi-language report by the ETV Bharat news channel published here on December 24, 2023 (archived link).

According to the report, a student who took part in the Geeta Jayanti celebrations in a public school in Faridabad was beaten by two teachers for allegedly throwing flowers at girls who were performing a dance.

Faridabad is a district in Haryana state, about 500 kilometres (310 miles) from Ayodhya (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the ETV Bharat video (right):

Screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the ETV Bharat video (right)

The incident was also covered by other news outlets here, here and here (archived links here, here and here).

Inspector Ranveer Singh, head of the Faridabad Sector-12 police station, told AFP that the claim is "completely false".

"The video is from a government school in Sector 12 and the child is not a Dalit but a Brahmin community. A necessary investigation is being done by registering a complaint against both the teachers," he said on January 5, 2024.

Sector 12 is a residential area in Faridabad.

Police in Ayodhya also refuted the claim on their official account on social media platform X here on December 26, 2023 (archived link).

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Clip shows teachers hitting pupil in India's Haryana, not Ayodhya temple officials 'beating Dalit boy'

Not in Ayodhya, not a Dalit

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