Mother, Daughter Killed in UP, Incident Given False Communal Spin

SHO Rasra Saurabh Kumar Rai told The Quint that the victims are Hindus, not Muslim as claimed.

Several social media users falsely claimed that the woman who was killed in the Ballia incident was a Muslim.

(Photo: Altered byThe Quint)

Video Editor: Prashant Chauhan

A viral video on social media is being circulated to give a communal spin to the incident that took place in Rasra area in Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia on 26 April, where a mother and her daughter were killed when a car hit them.

Social media posts claim that the deceased woman is a Muslim, however, SHO Rasra Saurabh Kumar Rai told The Quint that her name is Usha Devi and is a Hindu. He denied any communal angle in the incident and added that they have identified the car and the investigation into the matter is underway.

Usha Devi’s husband Sheshnath, too, told The Quint that the family does not have any personal rivalry and that there is no “Hindu-Muslim angle to the incident.”

You can view the archived version here.

CLAIM

The claim along the viral video mentions that the incident took place in Rasra area of Ballia in Uttar Pradesh. While describing the incident, the claim mentions that a Muslim woman, along with her daughter was walking by the roadside a car deliberately hit the two. Both of them died on the spot.

Several social media users have shared the video on Facebook and Twitter with the same claim. The video shared by one Facebook account ‘NewsIdol’ had garnered as many as 1,80,000 views at the time of publishing the article.

You can view the archived version here.

You can view the archived version here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We found a tweet by Ballia police in which they had shared the FIR of the case which mentioned that deceased was 27 year old Usha Devi and her daughter Pushpanjali aged 12 years.

The FIR has been registered under Section 304-A of IPC (Causing death by negligence) and Section 279 of IPC (Rash driving or riding on a public way).

Further, speaking to The Quint, SHO Rasra Saurabh Kumar Rai ruled out any communal angle to the incident and said that the woman was killed was a Hindu, and not Muslim, as being claimed in social media posts.

“The woman who was killed is a Hindu and her name is Usha Devi. There is no communal angle to the incident. We have identified the car and it’s a Delhi number. We are yet to find the accused and the investigation is still underway.”

Saurabh Kumar Rai, SHO Rasra

Usha Devi’s husband Sheshnath who has filed the FIR told The Quint that they have no enmity with anybody whatsoever and also said that the incident is not a communal one.

“We have had no rivalry whatsoever, you can come and ask our neighbourhood, they will tell you what kind of a family we are. There is no Hindu-Muslim angle to this,” he said.

Evidently, a Ballia incident where a mother and a daughter were killed has been falsely given a communal spin.

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