Claim
An image of a man in blood stained clothes carrying a severed head is circulating widely on social media platforms falsely claiming that he is carrying the severed head of the person who raped his sister, to the police station. The viral image read, "His sister was raped the next thing he did is he chopped the rapist head and took his head to the police station." Sharing the image, a user in Threads wrote as caption, "BEST REACTION." See post here, archive here. A Facebook user who also shared the viral image wrote, "Salute to This man 🙏🙏 He did the great job." Click here to see the post and here for archive.
Fact
Social media posts about severe punishment for rapists have gained traction following the rape and murder of a doctor in Kolkata in August, 2024.
BOOM had debunked a video of the same incident when it was viral in 2018 with a false communal claim. At that time, in the viral two-part video we noticed the man was talking to the police in Kannada. We were also able to check the name of the police station which was the Malavalli Town police station in Mandya district in Karnataka. The incident took place in September 2018. BOOM reached out to the then Mandya district SP Shiva Prakash Devaraju. He had told us, “The accused who is seen carrying the severed head is Pashupati and the victim is Girish." He further explained,"Both of them were from the Lingayat community and were friends and had got into a fight three days before the incident. Girish had allegedly said spoken ill about Pashupati’s mother which angered him. On the day of the incident, Pashupati took him out for coffee and then beheaded him with an axe and then rode to the Malavalli town police station on a bike." Devaraju added that the accused surrendered to the police and after getting the details, he was arrested.