CCTV footage from Haryana falsely viral as video of lynching of Muslim youth in Bihar

A 44-second CCTV clip of a group of young men thrashing a man with sticks is viral on social media. A girl is also seen coming to the man’s rescue, but the assailants do not relent. They continue to beat the man mercilessly as he is lying on the ground. It has been claimed that the video is from Bihar’s Samastipur district. The victim is purported to be a man named Mohammad Mustaqeem. According to the viral claim, he was accused of stealing a bull, due to which the mob thrashed him to death.

Twitter user Shakeel Syed shared this video and wrote, “Bihar: Youth named Mohd Mustaqeem youth brutally beaten to death by a mob on charges of bull theft in Samastipur”. (Archived link)

बिहार: समस्तीपुर में बैल चोरी के आरोप में भीड़ द्वारा मोहम्मद मुस्तक़ीम नामी युवक की बेरहमी से पीट पीटकर हत्या कर दी गई…
पुलिस ने तीन नामज़द समेत अन्य अज्ञातों के ख़िलाफ़ मामला दर्ज किया है… pic.twitter.com/fpKNWqMGLZ

— Shakeelsayed (@Shakeelsayed14) August 18, 2022

Another user named Irfan Ansari tweeted the visuals with a similar claim. (Archived link)

Mohammad Harun Mansuri also amplified this video as an incident from Samastipur. (Archived link)

Several other users also promoted the clip with the accompanying claim.

Fact-check

Alt News performed a reverse image search using the frames taken from the viral video. This led us to a Times Now Hindi article dated August 3, 2022, in which the viral video has been mentioned.

According to the article, this video depicts an incident in Hisar, Haryana. In a case of mutual enmity, a group of criminals beat a man named Vikas to death. His father Jaiveer Pehalwan had also been murdered several years ago. According to the report, several criminal cases were already registered against Vikas and at the time of the incident, he had just been released from prison a few days ago. After the incident, the police registered a case and launched an investigation. We also came across a few media reports covering this incident by outlets such as Jagran, ETV Bharat, and Hari Bhoomi. This confirms that the viral video is not from Samastipur.

What happened in the Samastipur incident?

Alt News performed a keyword search to investigate whether such an incident occurred in Samastipur. We came across two reports by Zee News and Navbharat Times from August 1, 2022. According to their coverage, villagers in Bihar’s Samastipur district thrashed a young man to death on charges of bull theft. While talking to the media, Samastipur’s Bibhutipur police station in charge Chandrakant Gauri stated that the police recovered mobile phones and motorcycles near the scene. The deceased has been identified as Mohammad Mustakim alias Bhola, a resident of Eghu village under the Mufassil police station area of ​​the Begusarai district. News18 Bihar also tweeted a video report related to the attack.

समस्तीपुर में भीड़ के हत्थे चढ़ा बैल चोरी का आरोपी, भीड़ ने की पीट-पीटकर हत्या। pic.twitter.com/dYs44or5zM

— News18 Bihar (@News18Bihar) August 1, 2022

To sum it up, CCTV footage of a man lynched to death in connection with a case of long-standing mutual enmity in Hisar, Haryana was falsely shared by social media users as a case of lynching of Muslim youth on charges of bull theft from Bihar’s Samastipur district. In reality, these are two separate and unrelated incidents.