UP gangrape footage falsely viral; In 2019 incident, perpetrators were all Muslims, victim a minor Hindu

A video of a group of men assaulting a girl while she pleads with them has been doing the rounds on social media. It has been claimed that the incident occurred in Bihar, and the victim was a Muslim and the perpetrators Hindus.

A user named Ruheen Bi tweeted the video claiming that a Muslim girl in Bihar was raped in a forest by a group of Hindu men. (Archived link)

Another user named Paro Nidhi Rao shared the video and wrote that footage of a Muslim girl being gang raped in a forest by a group of Hindu men was being circulated in ‘Hindu Twitter and Facebook groups’. (Archived link)

Two other users named Abdul Qadir Khan and Afak Ali Mansoori also shared the video with the same claim.

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Fact Check

Alt News performed a keyword search using terms related to the video, which led us to an article dated September 26, 2019 on ABP News. According to the report, the incident took place in Kaushambi, Uttar Pradesh. A teenage girl who had gone to cut grass in a village under the jurisdiction of the Sarai Akil police station, was captured by Mohammad Nazim, Mohammad Aaqib, and Mohammad Chhotka, who gangraped her and recorded the act. People were alerted by the girl’s shrieks and reached the spot. Mohammad Nazim was caught on the spot, while the others fled. Following this, Uttar Pradesh Police launched a search and arrested the absconding accused, Mohammad Chhotka and Mohammad Aaqib alias Barka.

Dainik Bhaskar reported that there was a reward of Rs 25,000 on Mohammad Chhotka, the accused involved in the gangrape of the minor Dalit girl, who was arrested after a shootout during which he was shot in the legs.

We performed another keyword search and came across a video dated September 23, 2019 on a YouTube channel named NYOOZ UP-Uttarakhand. The report contains the victim’s statement. She reveals that the accused raped her when she had gone to cut grass. The victim’s father accused the police of beating him when he had gone to the police station to file a report about the incident. The police registered a case when hundreds of villagers, angered by the inaction of the police, reportedly surrounded the Sarai Akil police station.

Some users also shared the video on Twitter. On September 23, 2019, Kaushambi police, while replying to these tweets, wrote that a case had been registered in Sarai Akil police station in the matter and one of the accused had been arrested and sent to jail. They added that they were conducting raids to arrest the other accused. Police appealed to users to immediately delete tweets containing the video to preserve the victim’s dignity and future. (Archived link)

उक्त प्रकरण के संबंध में थाना स0अकिल में अभियोग पंजीकृत कर 01 अभियुक्त को गिरफ्तार कर जेल भेजा गया है शेष अभियुक्तों की गिरफ्तारी हेतु दबिश दी जा रही है, पीड़िता की गरिमा, मानवता एवं भविष्य को दृष्टिगत रखते हुए उक्त ट्वीट को तत्काल डिलीट कर देंl

— KAUSHAMBI POLICE (@kaushambipolice) September 23, 2019

According to an article published on ABP Ganga’s website on February 6, 2020, the court sentenced the three miscreants who gangraped a Dalit girl in Kaushambi on September 21, 2019 to life imprisonment and also imposed a fine of Rs 1.83 lakh on them. The report mentions that they were charged under the SC/ST Act and tried in a POCSO court.

To sum it up, footage recorded by perpetrators from a four-year-old incident of gangrape from Uttar Pradesh is being falsely circulated as a Muslim girl being assaulted in Bihar by a group of Hindu men. In reality, the victim was a Hindu minor Dalit girl and the perpetrators were Muslims.