Video shows assault at Indian sporting club, not beating in Pakistan
- Published on August 21, 2025 at 09:57
- 3 min read
- By Alysha BIBI, AFP Hong Kong
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Warning: graphic video
"Pakistan, the rule established in the name of Islam has become nothing less than a torment for women," reads an August 10, 2025 X post sharing a video of several men holding up a person by their arms and legs while two other people beat them with sticks.
"The scene of eight Muslim police officers brutally oppressing and assaulting a defenseless woman is a living picture of the lawlessness in this country."
Muslim-majority Pakistan's legal system incorporates English common law, Islamic Sharia law and customary law (archived here).
Content warning
The clip surfaced alongside similar claims on Facebook, X and Instagram.
Users left comments suggesting they believed the video showed an assault in Pakistan.
"There is no justice in Pakistan. None whatsoever. Absolutely none. Isolate this sadistic entity," one said.
Another wrote: "In which sort of Islamic country were we born. It seems everything will end now."
However, the video is old and depicts an incident in neighbouring India.
Old video
A reverse image search using keyframes from the clip led to a July 8, 2024 X post from an India-based user who alleged the video showed a person associated with West Bengal ruling party All India Trinamool Congress -- popularly known as TMC -- "thrashing a girl with his gang".
The post also says the incident took place at the Taltala Sporting Club in Kolkata, capital of West Bengal.
The video caused uproar online, prompting TMC spokesperson Riju Dutta to post on X the next day: "This is an old video of March 2021. The accused is Jayant Singh and his associates" (archived here).
Singh has close ties with the TMC, according to local media reports (archived here) .
Subsequent keyword searches found the English-language daily Times of India published a screenshot of the video in a July 2024 report about police opening an investigation into the 2021 assault (archived here).
In a July 9, 2024 post on X, local police confirmed the video was filmed in 2021 and that six people were arrested in connection with the case. Authorities also identified the victim as a man -- not a woman, as claimed online (archived here).
The police said the man was brought to the club along with a woman and a child, where he was beaten over suspicions that he had stolen from a house.
A search on the Taltala Sporting Club's Facebook page found photos of the club's interior that match those seen in the video shared in the false posts (archived here).
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