A video of police tying a rope around an elderly person’s wrists has been circulating on social media. It is being claimed that an 80-year-old saint who had been campaigning against cow smugglers in Rajasthan was caught by the police and booked for extortion. The message accompanying the visuals states that the Ashok Gehlot-led government in Rajasthan is insulting Hindus. Facebook user Haripal Singh posted the clip with the same claim. (Archive link)
राजस्थान में एक संत ने गौ तस्करों के खिलाफ अभियान छोड़ा गौ तस्करों ने उनके ऊपर ही वसूली का केस करवा दिया
यहां तक तो ठीक था यह जांच का विषय है की कौन सही कौन गलत
लेकिन 80 साल के बुजुर्ग हिंदू संत को इस तरह से हथकड़ी पहनाकर लाना क्या उचित है ???
क्या यह पुलिसकर्मी में इतनी हिम्मत होगी कि वह किसी मौलवी को यू हथकड़ी डाल कर लाएगा ??
दरअसल जब अशोक गहलोत मुख्यमंत्री है तब हिंदुओं का ऐसे ही अपमान होगा
Posted by Haripal Singh Nauhwar on Wednesday, September 8, 2021
A Facebook user posted the video on a few groups including ‘I Support Namo‘, ‘अंतरराष्ट्रीय हिन्दू संगठन ग्रुप में अपने सभी हिंदू भाइयों को जोड़ें‘, पुष्पेन्द्र कुलश्रेष्ठ’, ‘रामायण‘ ‘ with the accompanying message.
Sharing the video on Twitter, users claimed that the Rajasthan police arrested Gau Rakshak Baba Garibdas instead of nabbing the cow-smugglers. (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4)
Fact-check
Alt News performed a keyword search on Facebook which led us to a post by Acharya Mumukshu Krishna Shastri where he had shared the video. Commenting on the post, another user shared a Live Hindustan report dated September 1, 2021. It states that a group of people from Rajasthan was transporting cows from the agricultural area of Ikhkheda village of Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun district. The District President of the Gau Raksha Sangharsh Samiti arrived there along with three others. A resident of Khandwa, Baba Garibdas, along with his companions, began demanding a sum of Rs. 5,000 from the people transporting the cattle. The following day, some people including the village head, filed a complaint against Garibdas and his associates for extortion. According to the article, the police investigation is currently underway.
Alt News reached out to the SHO of Ughaiti to get to the bottom of the entire matter. “The claim being made on social media is false. Actually, a group of people from Rajasthan were transporting cows, bulls, and donkeys from Ikhkheda village. That was when Garibdas and two others stopped their vehicle. Afterwards, the villagers filed a case accusing Garibdas and his associates of extortion,” he explained and added that such allegations have been made against Garibdas in the past as well. According to the police, he is currently under arrest and the investigation is still going on.
Furthermore, Alt News received a copy of the FIR from SHO Birendra. It mentions that Garibdas threatened the people who had come to purchase cattle from Rajasthan that if they did not pay him, he would implicate them in a cow slaughter case.
To sum it up, a group of cattle herders from Rajasthan was transporting cows and donkeys in a village in the Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh when a group of gau rakshaks (cow vigilantes) allegedly stopped their vehicle and demanded money. Gau rakshak Garibdas was arrested after the villagers filed a complaint. A video of this arrest was circulated with the false claim that the Rajasthan police was imprisoning cow vigilantes on false charges under the rule of the Ashok Gehlot government.
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