A video of a group of people thrashing a bloodied man with sticks is being shared widely on social media. It has been claimed that Muslims “with no fear of the law or arrest” were behind the attack in Rajasthan. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has been targeted in the messages.
One Twitter user shared the visuals and wrote, “An innocent Hindu named Yogesh Jatav was beaten to death by Rashid and his associates in Rajasthan. A Hindu was lynched in a Congress-ruled state. The victim was Hindu and his killers were Muslims, so of course, the administration is silent.”
A verified Twitter user named Ramesh Solanki quote-tweeted a similar post, tagging several ministers of the Rajasthan government. The post mentioned that no arrests had been made even after five days of the incident.
Several people shared the clip on Facebook and Twitter claiming the perpetrators were Muslims. Alt News received several requests on its WhatsApp number to verify this video.
No communal angle
We performed a keyword search, which led us to a few media reports stating that the victim and the accused belonged to the same community. A September 19 Dainik Bhaskar story read, “Five people sustained injuries after a scuffle between two families at Khatik’s Mansagar Shivpuri neighbourhood in the Mahamandir Police Station area. Both the families have personal enmity which led to the clash.” It also contains a few images that resemble the scenes in the viral video.
It further states that Ajay, Kanchan, Shanti, Kailash, and Kamlesh were injured in the attack after they were beaten with sticks. Police arrived on the scene and arrested 10 individuals, including Manoharlal, Ravindra Dhichi, Bharat, Vishal, Santosh, Vikas, Ghanshyam, Devilal, Bhavani, and Pukhraj.
Patrika and Navbharat Times also covered the incident. Neither of the outlets mentioned any communal angle.
Furthermore, Patrika quoted SHO Lekhraj Sihag who stated, “A jagran was being held in the locality on Saturday night on the occasion of Anant Chaturdashi, where youth from the opposing party got into an argument that escalated to a fight. He left afterwards. On Sunday afternoon, seven or eight youths from one side arrived armed with swords, iron pipes, and rods. They attacked Ajay’s son Kailash Khatik, who was standing near Jhalra Bera. When his maternal uncle Kamlesh intervened, the attackers began thrashing him, during which he sustained injuries on his head and fell to the ground.”
Alt News reached out to Mahamandir Police Station, where an officer confirmed that there was no communal angle to the incident and the row broke over mutual enmity. They also confirmed that the claim being made on social media was completely false.
To sum it up, a video of a scuffle between two Hindu families was falsely shared as a Muslim mob thrashing a Hindu man.
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