Claim
The video of a man being assaulted while lying naked on the ground with his hands tied behind his back is viral with the false claim that it shows Alexander Coates Reid, principal of DY Patil School in Ambi, Maharashtra. The claim also mentions that he is being beaten up by members of far-right groups Bajrang Dal and Vishva Hindu Parishad. The text with the video reads, "Principal of DY Patel Alexander a Christian beaten badly by Bajrang Dal and VHP people. Pray for him and for India."
Fact
The viral claim has combined an unrelated video from abroad to an incident that took place at a school in Maharashtra's Pimpri Chinchwad district recently. On July 4, 2023, several members of the Bajrang Dal and VHP visited DY Patil School in Ambi, Pimpri Chinchwad along with some parents over two issues. The first was the installation of CCTV cameras in the lobby of the girls' washroom, and the second was the alleged recital of a Christian prayer at the school. Videos of the principal, Alexander Coates Reid, being chased and accosted around the campus over these issues had since gone viral. Meanwhile a graphic video showing a man lying naked on the floor and being brutally assaulted with a paddle is not related to the incident described above. BOOM had previously debunked this video in June 2023 when it went viral with another false claim related to the Balasore train accident. A keyword search of the video led us to a number of gore and pornographic websites that shared the same video multiple times since 2021 claiming that the man was being beaten up by the Mexican cartel. We also found a Reddit thread from October 2021 that claimed the man was being beaten for stealing from the cartel. BOOM could not independently verify the location or time of the video, but it is at least as old as 2021 and not related to the incident at DY Patil School and does not show its principal Alexander Reid.