A viral video showing disturbing visuals of a man assaulting a woman is being shared with a false communal claim that the accused man is a Muslim and the woman a Hindu.
BOOM has found that the communal claim is completely false. Both the accused and the victim belong to the same religion.
(Given the graphic nature of the video, BOOM has decided to not include the same in the story.)
The video shows a young man first catching hold of the woman's hand, following which, an arguments ensues between the two of them. During this, the man becomes furious and slaps the woman before slamming her on the ground. Moreover, he starts kicking her legs, and then, proceeds to kick her face brutally till she loses consciousness.
The viral video is being shared with false communal claims on Facebook claiming the the accused is a Muslim. The Hindi text translates to, "Mother - Father, Society* even after explaining millions. Something like this happens with Hindu girls who say *'My Abdul is not the same'*, *yes, the style may be different* but it happens. Share it"
(Original text in Hindi: "*मां - बाप , समाज* के लाख समझाने के बाद भी *'मेरा अब्दुल वैसा नहीं है'* कहने वाली हिन्दू लड़कियों के साथ कुछ ऐसा ही होता है , *हां हो सकता है अंदाज़ कुछ अलग हो* लेकिन होता ऐसा ही है ?)
Posts with the similar claim on Facebook can be found here, here, and here.
We also received the video on our WhatsApp tipline (7700906588).
FACT-CHECK
Taking a cue from the visuals in the video, we ran a keyword search and found a news report by The Lallantop published on December 26, 2022. The featured image of this article is a screengrab from the viral video.
According to the story, the incident happened on December 21, 2022 in Maugang in Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh.
The reports named the accused in the case as 24-year-old Pankaj Tripathi, was who allegedly in a relationship with the victim.
The report also included a statement by Rewa Sadar's SDOP Naveen Tiwari to ANI where he said that the accused was going towards his village with the woman when they started arguing. He then started beating up the young woman and attacking her, and some locals present caught the incident on video.
The report further said that the woman was rushed to the local medical centre and a police investigation led to the arrest of Pankaj Tripathi as the alleged accused.
In addition to this, a tweet by the Public Relations Department of Rewa was also included in the report. According to the tweet, the district transport officer had cancelled Tripathi's driving license following this incident.
The report names Tripathi as the alleged accused and does not mention any communal angle.
We also found news reports related to this incident on many other news websites, with nobody reporting a communal angle.
According to Aaj Tak, the young man and the woman were said to be in a relationship and the argument on the said say was because the victim was insisting that Tripathi get married to her which led to an argument and ended with the woman getting brutally beaten.
BOOM also spoke to SDOP of Rewa who refuted the viral claim and clarified that both the alleged accused and the victim belonged to the same community and are Hindus.
We also found a Twitter thread by the office of Madhya Pradesh's Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on December 25, 2022.
A video in the thread showed the house of the alleged accused being demolished on orders of the CM Chouhan to concerned officials