A video showing a group of people assaulting an elderly man on a busy street is going viral on social media platforms.
What are users claiming?: Social media users are sharing the video to claim that the man was assaulted by men for saying "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" (Long live mother India).
An archive of this post can be seen here.
(Source: X/Screenshot)
(Archives of more claims on social media can be seen here and here.)
Is it true?: No. The incident took place in Rajasthan's Bhilwara district on 15 October 2019, and the man was beat up by locals after allegedly abusing people on the street.
Speaking to The Quint in 2019, Bhilwara SP Harendra Kumar said that the incident took place in the Azad Chowk area, "where local shopkeepers beat the old man because he allegedly used to extort money from them."
How did we find out?: The Quint had previously debunked this claim in 2019, when the same video was being shared with a false communal angle.
We had found that former Delhi MLA Manjinder Sirsa had shared the video on his verified Facebook page, where the location was specified as the Azad Chowk area in Bhilwara, Rajasthan.
The post was shared on Sirsa's page.
(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)
It must be noted that this claim comes ahead of the Assembly elections in Rajasthan, which will go to polls on 25 November.
Speaking to The Quint in October 2019, Bhilwara SP Harendra Kumar siad that the incident took place on 15 October.
Identifying the old man as Hotchand, a person from the Sindhi community, Kumar said that local shopkeepers "beat the old man because he allegedly used to extort money from them."
Rubbishing the older communal angle given to the incident, he clarified that the men attacking Hotchand belonged to the Hindu and Sindhi communities. "One of them might be a Muslim," he said, but stated that there was no communal angle.
Five people were arrested in connection to the assault. As per a FIR registered on 20 October 2019, accessed by BOOM, the accused were identified as:
Manoj alias Mulla Sindhi (39),
Hemant Nathani (45),
Bhagwan Das (37),
Majoor Sheikh (31),
Irfan (34).
The FIR was registered on 20 October 2019, five days after the incident took place.
(Source: BOOM/Screenshot)
The Quint also reached out to Dilshad Khan, a local journalist, who told us that Hotchand, also called 'Hotu', was abusing people in the area.
When nearby shopkeepers intervened in an attempt to stop him, he reportedly slapped one of them.
Khan said that this triggered the shopkeepers' response, who beat Hotu. However, he added that this was not the first time Hotchand had been involved in an incident of this nature.
"Earlier too, he has been doing this, and has been beaten before," Khan said.
The police official corroborated Khan's statement, mentioning that Hotchand had previously been arrested for attacking his brother. Bhilwara jail's doctor told The Quint that Hotchand had an "adjustment disorder."
Conclusion: A 2019 video of an incident in Bhilwara, Rajasthan is being shared with a false claim that an old man was assaulted for saying "Bharat Mata Ki Jai."
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