Trigger Warning: Disturbing Visuals/ Sexual Harassment
A video compilation is going viral on social media. The clip begins with what appears to be CCTV footage showing a group of girls in uniform walking down a street. As they pass by, a man on a bike drives past and inappropriately touches one of the girls. Later, the video shows a man being beaten up and paraded by the police on the road. The viral claim along with the video(s) is that the perpetrator, a Muslim, was duly punished by Uttar Pradesh police in public. Most of the social media posts carry an implicit tone of endorsement of how UP police treated the accused.
X user Baba Banaras (@RealBababanaras), tweeted the video compilation on December 20, 2024, with a caption, “Abdul was molesting school girls every day. His activity captured in CCTV camera. Rest job done by UP police. Do you support this action of police ?”
Abdul was molesting school girls every day. His activity captured in CCTV camera. Rest job done by UP police.
Do you support this action of police ? pic.twitter.com/Viuo3QiPWb
— Baba Banaras
(@RealBababanaras) December 20, 2024
The tweet has garnered over 1 Million views and has been retweeted around 7,000 times. Readers should note that this user shares communal propaganda and disinformation on social media on a regular basis.
Another X account, Frontal Force (@FrontalForce), tweeted the same video compilation with the same caption, “Abdul was molesting school girls every day. His activity captured in CCTV camera. Rest job done by UP police.”
Abdul was molesting school girls every day. His activity captured in CCTV camera. Rest job done by UP police.
Do you support this action of police ? pic.twitter.com/Xfj8GWiBXC
— Frontalforce
(@FrontalForce) December 20, 2024
Similarly, several social media accounts have amplified the claim.
Click to view slideshow.Fact Check
After breaking the video into several key frames, we ran a reverse search image on a few of them from the first half of the video which shows the bike-borne man harassing the girl. This led us to an article by News75.com with the headline, “Bike rider’s brutality: molested a school girl, hit her breast”. According to the article, the incident occurred on December 6, 2024, in Prabhani, Maharashtra.
Taking cues from this we performed a keyword search that led us to a news report by a local media outlet Deshonnati. According to the report, on December 6, 2024, a group of college girls were on their way to the district general hospital via the back road of Mahatma Phule College in Parbhani, Maharashtra. During this time a young man on a bike harassed one of the girls. A case of molestation was registered against the accused at Nanalpet police station. The entire incident was recorded on CCTV, which allowed the police to track down the accused. On December 8, 2024, a persona named Md. Aslam was detained from Dharampuri in Parli taluka and brought to Nanalpet police station for further action.
Second Part of the Viral Video
We performed a reverse image search on a few key frames from the second half of the video compilation. This led us to a news bulletin by News21 on YouTube from December 8, 2024, with the title “Gadarwara: Madhur Chawrasia was murdered over a transaction worth Rs 40,000| MP News | News Update | MP Police”
The bulletin comprises the same video as the one which has gone viral, where police are seen beating up a man while parading him on the street.
According to the report, police arrested Vikas Kuchbandia on charges of killing Madhur Chaurasia for not returning Rs 40,000 that he had borrowed, in Gadwara, Madhya Pradesh.
Taking a cue from this, we performed a keyword search on YouTube that led us to another news bulletin by Bharat Samvad Tv. The video featured footage similar to the viral video.
According to this report, a young man, Madhur Chaurasia was murdered in Gadarwara town in Narsinghpur district of Madhya Pradesh on December 5, 2024. The incident took place in front of Nalanda School. The prime suspect in the murder, Vikas Kuchbandiya, was arrested following an investigation. The murder was allegedly committed as Madhur did not return Rs 40,000 he owed Vikas.
In our investigation, we found several news reports that corroborated the incident. NavBharat, for example, reported that Krishna Sahu, a resident of Shivalaya Chowk Gadarwara, had filed a report that Vikas Kuchbandiya had killed Madhur Chaurasia by slitting his throat and bashing his head with a stone in Chowpatty Gadarwara. Dainik Bhaskar and Aditi News, too, reported on the same incident.
To sum up, firstly, the two videos compiled together are not related to each other. Secondly, the two incidents are from two different states, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, respectively. The video compilation is falsely shared as an incident from Uttar Pradesh.
In the first incident, the accused was identified as Md Aslam. In the second incident, the person arrested for alleged murder is Vikas Kuchbandiya. The two incidents are completely unrelated and neither of them is from Uttar Pradesh. However, the two videos were shared together to create the narrative that this was how UP police treated a Muslim accused (by publicly flogging and parading him). This is misleading. And this is not the first time the Right Wing has tried to ‘credit’ UP police, and by extension, Yogi Adityanath’s government, of meting out a right ‘treatment’ to a Muslim accused in a crime by sharing unrelated videos or false and misleading information. The subtext behind such claims is that police forces from other states should learn from UP police how to treat an accused if he is Muslim by faith.
The post Unrelated videos from Maharashtra, MP combined to create false narrative of ‘UP police treating Muslim accused’ appeared first on Alt News.
This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.
Ankita Mahalanobish | Radio Free (2024-12-27T10:12:16+00:00) Unrelated videos from Maharashtra, MP combined to create false narrative of ‘UP police treating Muslim accused’. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2024/12/27/unrelated-videos-from-maharashtra-mp-combined-to-create-false-narrative-of-up-police-treating-muslim-accused/
Please log in to upload a file.
There are no updates yet.
Click the Upload button above to add an update.