‘Molester’ thrashed by girls in viral video a Muslim? No, false communal angle added to 2018 Baghpat incident

A video of some girls in school uniform trying to chase a man with sticks in their hands is viral with the claim that the man, a Muslim, was an “alleged molester” who had entered a girls’ school. Right Wing influencer Arun Pudur tweeted the video and wrote, “Brave Hindu girls chase an alleged molester from ‘Vishesh Samuday’ who entered their Girls only school. The molester runs away like a coward. Place & Date unconfirmed”. Here ‘vishesh samuday’ or ‘special community’ is a jibe at Muslims. (Archive)

Brave Hindu girls chase an alleged molester from ‘Vishesh Samuday’ who entered their Girls only school. The molestor runs away like a coward.

Place & Date unconfirmed. pic.twitter.com/SlpeSgdbTR

— Arun Pudur (@arunpudur) November 24, 2023

The tweet garnered almost 45000 views and 4300 likes.

Another Right Wing account, @ajaychauhan41, tweeted the video and remarked that it was great to see Hindu daughters teaching a lesson to Love Jihadis. (Archive)

The readers should note that @arunpudur and @ajaychauhan41 are handles that are regularly found sharing misinformation on X.

Verified account @TheAbhishek_IND also amplified the viral video with the same claim. (Archive)

वीडियो कहां से है पता नहीं, लेकिन यह देखकर बहुत अच्छा लगा कि “हिंदू बेटियों” ने लव जिहादियों को सबक सिखाना शुरू कर दिया है… pic.twitter.com/yemY2XzwA8

— Abhishek Kumar Kushwaha (@TheAbhishek_IND) November 24, 2023

Several other X users, including verified ones, have amplified the viral video. (Archives- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

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Fact Check

Upon a reverse image search of one of the key frames of the video, we found a December 2018 report in The Quint titled “Girls Thrash Eve-Teaser On School Grounds in UP’s Baghpat”. The report, which carries the viral video, states that a group of female students from Dharm Singh Saraswati Balika Inter College in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat beat up a man with sticks for harassing them. One of the girls reportedly said that they had thrashed the perpetrator “to teach him a lesson so that he doesn’t dare to harass any other women.”

A video report by The Quint contains a statement from SHO Sanjeev Kumar wherein he says that, upon investigating, police arrested a man named Kapil Chauhan under Section 294.

We also found a Times of India report from December 2018 which stated that girls had complained to the school authorities but when no action was taken, they decided to teach the man a lesson themselves.

That the accused had been arrested at the time was also confirmed by Baghpat Police in a tweet dated December 10, 2018.

उक्त प्रकरण के संबंध में आरोपी को थाना बड़ौत पुलिस द्वारा गिरफ्तार कर लिया गया है, विधिक कार्यवाही की जा रही है।

— Baghpat Police (@baghpatpolice) December 10, 2018

It is worth noting that the same video went viral in January 2022, falsely linking it to the Congress’ ‘Ladki hoon, lad sakti hoon’ (I’m a girl, I can fight) campaign launched in November 2021 focusing on women and women empowerment in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh.

Thus it is evident that 2018 video of schoolgirls beating up an alleged molester is currently being circulated online with a false communal spin. Alt News found that the perpetrator in the video was a Hindu named Kapil Chauhan. He was arrested.