This video has circulated in reports about women attacking a Hindu man in India after he 'harrassed minors'

This article is more than one year old.
Published on February 3, 2020 at 11:10
2 min read
By AFP India

A video has been viewed tens of thousands of times in multiple Facebook and Twitter posts which claim it shows women beating a Muslim man on a street in India after he attempted to rape a five-year-old. The claim is misleading; local police told AFP the man in the video is a Hindu who was stripped naked and assaulted by several women on a street in Ambala for making “objectionable gestures and obscene comments” at minors in January 2020; the video has also circulated in media reports which corresponded with the police statement.

The video was published here on Facebook on January 22, 2020. It has been viewed more than 1,900 times.

It shows a man being beaten and stripped naked by several women on a street.

Below is a screenshot of the misleading Facebook post:

Screenshot of misleading Facebook post

The post's Hindi-language caption translates to English as: “A Muslim man tried to rape a five-year old girl in Jain Bazar of Ambala city. Local women caught him, stripped off his clothes and paraded him naked. This mentality will go away only when every person, who has such a disgusting thoughts, will be given the same social treatment.”

Jain Bazar is a market in the Old Town area of Ambala, in the north Indian state of Haryana.

The one-minute and 48-second long video was also shared alongside a similar claim here, here, here and here on Facebook; as well as here, here, here and here on Twitter, where it has been viewed more than 58,000 times on both social media platforms.

The claim is misleading; local police told AFP the video shows a Hindu man who was stripped naked and assaulted by several women on a street in Ambala for making “objectionable gestures and obscene comments” at minors in January 2020.

During a phone conversation with AFP, Ambala Police’s Inspector Sunita Dhaka said: “His name is Pawan Kumar and he is a Hindu man. He used to make objectionable gestures and obscene comments towards minor girls on their way to school. The family members of the girls caught the man, stripped him naked, thrashed and handed over to the police on January 20 when they told their families about this.”

“We have arrested the accused and registered a case under Section 12 of POCSO Act and Section 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). He is still behind bars.”

Pawan and Kumar are popular names in India with Hindu origins, according to the baby names website Hindunames and family history site Ancestry.

The incident was also reported by The Times of India here and Hindi-language newspaper Dainik Bhaskar here on January 21, 2020. Neither news site stated that the man was Muslim.

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