A video which has been circulated on social media shows a bunch of people beating a man while he is strapped with a rope. A Facebook page News Personality has shared the video with the following claim, “गुजरात: कल दुपहर 3 बजे एक मुस्लिम को भगवा आतंकी भीड़ ने रस्सी से बाँध कर पीटा बरोडा के आजवा चौकड़ी का मामला (Gujarat: A Muslim man was tied and beaten up by a saffron terrorist mob. This incident took place at Ajwa crossroads, Baroda -translated)”
Several other individuals on Twitter and Facebook have posted the same video with the identical narrative.
The same video was also posted on Twitter with a different claim. “एक मुस्लिम को #आतंकवादी भीड़ ने रस्सी से बाँध कर पीटा पार्लियामेंट स्क्वेयर लन्दन भारत में हो रही लिंचिंग और आतंकी घटनाओं के विरुद्ध प्रदर्शन हुआ अब तो शर्म करो और रोको #MobLynching करना या ओर नाम खराब करोगे भारत माता का ?? ( A Muslim was tied with a rope and beaten up by a terrorist mob. A protest was held at Parliament Square London against the mob-lynching and terror incidents in India. At least now be ashamed and stop #moblynching or you will further tarnish India’s name?)”, reads the message posted by a Twitter user.
एक मुस्लिम को #आतंकवादी भीड़ ने रस्सी से बाँध कर पीटा
पार्लियामेंट स्क्वेयर लन्दन
भारत में हो रही लिंचिंग और आतंकी घटनाओं के विरुद्ध प्रदर्शन हुआअब तो शर्म करो और रोको #MobLynching
करना या ओर नाम खराब करोगे भारत माता का ?? pic.twitter.com/E2s8O0180g— sk (@cutelife_24) July 22, 2019
FACT CHECK
Alt News broke up the video into multiple key-frames with the help of a digital verification tool Invid. We then performed a reverse search on one of the frames and found several news articles pertaining to the incident.
According to an article published in August 2017, Mukim, who belongs to the Muslim community and is seen beaten up in the video. The article further stated that he is a resident of Sikri, Bharatpur district in Rajasthan. Mukim was lingering around in a nearby village where he was beaten up by a group of people over suspicion of his involvement in braid-chopping incidents. The victim was brutally beaten up and was left to die. Those present at the scene had shot a video of this incident. The cops arrived at the scene after receiving information about the incident and later got to know during the enquiry that Mukim was mentally ill and hence couldn’t explain or defend himself while he was being beaten up. At the time, police had arrested nine people in the case that was registered by the victim’s father Baljeet.
Alt News contacted Sikri police who corroborated that the incident indeed took place in Sikri, Bharatpur, Rajasthan. Hence, the social media claim that this incident took place in Baroda, Gujarat is false. However, Alt News was unable to ascertain whether or not there was any communal motive behind the crime.
