Four men dressed as women thrashed by mob in Haryana over false child-kidnapping rumours

A video of four men who are dressed in women’s clothing, being escorted by the police was shared by Facebook page Pehchan Faridabad. Posting the video, the page claimed that these men were child-kidnappers who were arrested by the police in Dheeg locality of Haryana’s Ballabgarh city. “सुरक्षित हुए शहर के बच्चे, पकड़ी गई बच्चा चोरी करने वाली गैंग (The children of the city are safe now, gang of child-kidnapper was nabbed -translated)”, asserted the message. The post has garnered over 3, 800 shares so far.

Fact-check

With a keyword search on Google, we found a Navbharat Times report published on August 26, 2019. According to the report, villagers had brutally beaten four people who were roaming in unusual clothes over suspicion of them being child-kidnappers. These men were dressed as women and were begging for alms in the village. Meanwhile, somebody in the village spread a rumour that these people were child-kidnappers. We also found another video of the same incident from a different time-frame, which corroborates that this video is of Dheeg village. In the interrogation, they claimed to be resident of Godota village from Palwal district in the state.

Alt News found that the men dressed as women were part of a religious dance troupe who had just performed at the nearby village called Sahupura. At least two individuals commented below the same video that these men had come to their village to perform and these weren’t child-kidnappers.

In conclusion, a video of four men, who were dressed as women and were mistaken for child-lifters, being escorted by the police was massively shared on Facebook with the false narrative that these were child-kidnappers arrested in Faridabad district, Haryana.