Video Of Child Molester Publicly Shamed In Pakistan Viral In India

A video from Lahore, Pakistan showing a mob publicly shame a man who was allegedly caught molesting a child, is being shared on Facebook in India without specifying where the incident took place.

The viral clip shows a group of men shaving off the eyebrows and beard of a middle-aged man while a couple of people record the entire act on their mobile phones. While no one in shown in the video is wearing a mask, the gloves on the hands of one of the persons recording the video suggests it might be recent. 

The video has been shared from right-wing pages like मेरा हिंदुस्तान (My India) and Nationalist Krishan राष्ट्रवादी कृष्ण with a Hindi caption which translates to 'neighbours shaved off the eyebrows and beard of a Moulavi who was caught molesting a five-year-old girl'. The claims, however, do not specify the place where the incident took place.

(Hindi: मौलवी को पांच साल की बच्ची के साथ बलात्कार करते पकड़ा गया पड़ोसीयो ने इसकी दाढ़ी और भौंहें मुंड़वा दी)

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The video has been shared from multiple Twitter handles with the same caption.

Several Twitter users have also said the incident in from Lahore, Pakistan.

Fact Check

While watching the video closely, BOOM saw one of the bystanders in the crowd wearing a T-shirt with Pakistani flag imprinted on it.

BOOM found that most of the Twitter users who had tweeted the video, had reshared the video from the Twitter handle of Ahmad Waqass Goraya, who had tweeted the same video with an Urdu caption on May 21. 

The Urdu caption, when translated to English, reads 'Maulvi was caught raping a five-year-old girl. The locals shaved their beards and eyebrows'. 

Goraya is a Pakistani blogger and activist living in forced exile in the Netherlands.

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Goraya had also retweeted the same video which was tweeted from Twitter handle of Tribal News Network with a caption 'An enraged mob shaved beard and eyebrows of a man was caught red handed while molesting a five year old girl in Lahore'.

Tribal News Network's Twitter profile mentions that the handle provides 'local news to the tribal areas of Pakistan'.

BOOM found the same video uploaded on YouTube with a claim linking it to Lahore.

We then searched the internet with relevant Urdu keywords for the text 'People shaved the head and beard of a middle-aged man for raping a girl'.

(Urdu: شہریوں نے بچی کے ساتھ زیادتی پرادھیڑ عمر شخص کے سر اور داڑھی کے بال مونڈھ دیئے)

BOOM found a couple of article published on local Urdu web portals carrying the same image.

A report published in dailyqudrat.pk on May 22 mentions that the incident was from Lahore and the mentions that the police had registered an FIR against the accused.

Following this, BOOM checked the Twitter handle of Lahore police and found a tweet from the handle DIG Operations Lahore which mentions the name of the accused as Altaf Hussain.