Video from Delhi falsely linked to Ghaziabad incident where elderly Muslim man was beaten

A video that shows a mob thrashing a group of people has been shared on social media. Dozens of people can be seen forcefully dragging out a few men from a house and beating them with sticks. It has been claimed that the incident is from Loni, Ghaziabad where a mob beat up the accused who were caught on camera assaulting an elderly Muslim man and cutting off his beard. One Zeeshan Kayyum posted the 4-minute-long video gaining 61,000 views as of this writing.

Another user, Mohammad Guddu, shared the video on the Facebook group AIMIM Uttar Pradesh, drawing over 9,000 shares till now.

The video is quite widespread on Facebook.

One Ashfak Siddiqui had tweeted the video asking, “Whom have the police arrested if they are the accused?” (अगर मुजरिम ये हैं तो फिर पुलिस ने अरेस्ट किसे किया है ? )

Video from Delhi, unrelated to Ghaziabad incident

The police have arrested three people in the Ghaziabad incident while three others are absconding. We found that a few people had commented on the viral video, saying that it’s from Jahangirpuri in Delhi. A keyword search on YouTube led us to a report by Republic Bharat that airs a part of the viral video. According to the channel, a group of alleged extortionists were beaten up by locals in Jahangirpuri.

According to NDTV, the incident took place on June 12 when three people came to the house of a vegetable seller to extort money. The vendor appealed to his neighbours for help which led a mob of locals to take the law into their own hands. They handed over the three accused to the police after beating them up. The police registered an FIR against the three accused. The report also says that the vegetable seller was involved in a betting (gambling) racket.

A video of a mob beating up three people accused of extorting money from a vegetable seller has been falsely linked to the incident from Ghaziabad where an elderly Muslim man was thrashed by a group of youth who also cut off his beard.