Video of a Rajasthani Youth Assaulted on Allegations of Adultery Resurfaces with a False Narrative

Caste-based atrocities continue to plague our society, as evidenced by recent incidents such as the assault on a Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh after her goat strayed into fields belonging to upper-caste individuals, and the attack on a Dalit child from Madhya Pradesh for touching a water bucket. 

A video of an incident where a youth can be seen humiliated by a group of men is doing rounds on X (formerly Twitter). The X user who shared the video claims that this is the state of affairs of people from lower caste in Modi’s India. The caption of the user’s post is as follows:
“Amazing picture of Modi’s India. In the Modi era, see the practice of punishing a lower caste Hindu for drinking tap water from a higher caste by smacking the water with shoes. The government could not end discrimination in the country, that government is backward.”

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As elections approach, political campaigning on social media platforms have intensified. Amid this, this post accused PM Modi of allowing such incidents of caste based atrocities under his watch and asks voters to not vote for BJP.

However, when we investigated the incident we found that the incident took place more than 3 years ago in Rajasthan and is not an incident of caste based atrocity. Let us see what is the actual context of the viral video.

Fact Check

The said video had gone viral in 2020 as well with a similar claim. After fact-checking the video we published a detailed report in Hindi that you can read by clicking here. We did a keyword search on Google and found a report by Dainik Bhaskar. As per the reports, the incident in the video happened on 11 June 2020 in Sumerpur in Pali district of Rajasthan. The youth was abducted by a group of men from his village called Bharunda and brought him at a place called Suparna (Sardarpur village) near Sirohi. The men alleged that the youth was involved in an adulterous relationship with a married woman and they thrashed the youth with shoes. They also made him drink urine in an alcohol bottle and tortured his family members as well and also looted ₹5000 from the youth’s family, the report added. 

After the video went viral, Police registered a case on 15^th June 2020. Following which Rajasthan Police arrested 5 people – Lakshmanram Devasi, Jawanram, Bhimaram and Dargaram Devasi. 

Read full article here – Dainik Bhaskar | Archived Link

Fact Crescendo contacted Bhoma Ram, who was then the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Sumerpur who informed us that the narrative going viral around this video on social media is false. He clarified that the incident is not of caste based atrocity as all the accused belong to the same Devasi community as that of the victim. He also said that the men beat him over allegations of the youth being involved in an adulterous relationship with a married woman. 

Dainik Jagran had posted a video byte of the then Kota S.P., Rahul, who states that the victim was in a relationship with a woman due to which he was abducted and then subjected to torture and humiliation.

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It is also to be noted that at the time of this incident, the state government of Rajasthan was of Congress headed by Ashok Gehlot. 

Conclusion

From our investigation, we can conclude that the claim made on X using the viral video is False. The incident seen in the viral video happened more than 3 years ago in Rajasthan. The victim and the accused are from the same community and hence there was no issue of caste in the incident. The victim was brutally assaulted and humiliated over a love affair. 

If you come across any such videos online and want us to investigate, please send it on our WhatsApp tip-line number 9049053770. 

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