A message circulating along with a video claims that a Maulvi molested a girl who was learning about the Quran from him. It blames Karnataka media for not covering the issue which would’ve gained the needed attention had the perpetrator been a Hindu priest.

The video shows several people hounding a man inside what looks like a mosque. A woman is seen thrashing the man with a lathi. The message accompanying the clip is in Kannada – ಮದ್ರಾಸಿದಲ್ಲಿ ಕುರಾನ್ ಕಲಿಯಲು ಬಂದ ಬಾಲಕಿ ಮೇಲೆ ಲೈಂಗಿಕ ಕಿರುಕುಳ ನೀಡಿರುವ ಮೌಲಾನ. ಇದನ್ನು ಕರ್ನಾಟಕದ ಯಾವ ಮಾಧ್ಯಮಕ್ಕೂ ಪ್ರಸಾರ ಮಾಡುವ ತಾಕತ್ತು ಇಲ್ಲ. ಬರಿ ಹಿಂದೂ ಮಠ ಸ್ವಾಮಿ ಹಾಗೆ ಮಾಡಿದ್ರು ಹೀಗೆ ಮಾಡಿದ್ರು ಅಂತ ಮಾತ್ರ ಪ್ರಸಾರ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಾರೆ. (Maulana sexually abused a girl who came to learn the Koran in Madrasa. No media in Karnataka can afford to broadcast it. Only if a Hindu Swami would have done this, the media would’ve covered it. – loosely translated from Google Translate)”

The clip has been massively shared on Facebook.

The clip was also shared by Mahesh Hegde, the man behind the fake news portal Postcard News. He blamed Indian media, instead of Karnataka media, for not reporting the incident.

OLD VIDEO FROM PAKISTAN

If one analyzes the clip carefully, the woman indeed thrashes the man for molesting her daughter. She repeatedly says, “do you have no shame? how dare you…my daughter.” The woman and the other people in the video speak in a mixed Hindi-Urdu dialect, which suggests that the clip was not shot in the southern parts of the country.

Upon searching for the video with the keywords – ‘Maulvi molest girl mosque’ – we found that it is from last year. The oldest instance of the video that we discovered was uploaded on April 5, 2018 with an Urdu caption, “امام مسجد اپنی آٹھ سالہ قرآن کی شاگرد لڑکی کے ساتھ مسجد بدفعلیاں کرتے پکڑا گیا بچی کی ماں نے مسجد میں ہی پٹائ کردی”, which roughly translates to – “Imam was caught abusing an 8-year-old girl who was a disciple and had come to study the Quran. The mother of the girl beat him up.” The video posted below was uploaded by Facebook page ‘Pakistan KHAN’. It has a million views and 26,000 shares.

ik

امام مسجد اپنی آٹھ سالہ قرآن کی شاگرد لڑکی کے ساتھ مسجد بدفعلیاں کرتے پکڑا گیا بچی کی ماں نے مسجد میں ہی پٹائ کردی

Posted by Pakistan KHAN on Thursday, 5 April 2018

Pakistani news outlet ARY News had reported the incident last year.

It was also reported by Indian media outlets – Jansatta, Patrika, Amar Ujala, Times Now – after the video was widespread on social media.

A year-old video of a woman from Pakistan thrashing a Maulvi for molesting her daughter has now been picked up on the Indian social media ecosystem.

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About the Author

Pooja Chaudhuri is a senior editor at Alt News.