CLAIM
A video of a man being thrashed brutally is being circulated on social media with a claim that he is being beaten up by a group of men from the privileged class for no fault of his own. It further goes on to claim that he is a Dalit and the police hasn’t taken any action against his perpetrators.
The caption with the claim reads, “राजपूत समाज के कायरो ने एक बेकसूर दलित युवक को पीट पीटकर मार ङाला उसकी बेरहमी से हत्या कर दी, घटना की अभी तक FIR दर्ज नही हुई है पुलिस प्रशासन मामले की लीपा पोती मे लगी है। [ घटना करनाल जिले में निसिंग के पास गोंदर गांव की है] (Translated: These Rajput men have killed the innocent Dalit for no fault of his own. The police has not even filed an FIR against the accused. The incident took place in Gonder village in Karnal).”
The video has been shared by multiple users on Facebook.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The video shared with the claim that the man was beaten to death because he is a Dalit is completely false.
Firstly, the incident dates back to November 2018 and is from Sandhir village of Nilokheri town in Karnal district. The victim was identified as Harwinder Singh, who was beaten up by his uncle Dalbir Singh and his men following a family land dispute.
Further, an FIR was lodged in the case and the police had arrested six people.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On fragmenting the video into multiple key-frames using Invid Google Chrome extension and then conducting a reverse image search on one of the frames, we came across a report uploaded by a YouTube channel called Daily Post Punjabi on 4 November, 2018.
The report mentioned that the incident had happened in Sandhir village in Karnal. It further said that the victim was beaten up by his uncle and cousins due to a land dispute. We then ran a Google search using ‘ताऊ नीलोखेड़ी कस्बे जमीनी विवाद’ and came across a report published by Dainik Bhaskar.
The daily added that the incident happened on 1 November when the victim Harwinder Singh was working on his farm. He accused his uncle and his men of beating him up.
The Quint also spoke to a police officer at Sandhir station who too corroborated the details and denied the caste angle.
Clearly in this case a caste angle was used to spread misinformation. Not that it takes anything away from the actual reality of caste related violence in India. According to the NCRB data released by the Home Ministry, In 805 cases which were recorded 958 people became victim of caste violence in the year 2017 alone.
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