Claim
A video has been circulating with a false claim that it shows a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA being thrashed by a group of women in Kerala. In the video, women can be seen getting into an altercation with a person and beating him later. The video has a Hindi caption: Women thrashed BJP MLA in Kerala by stripping him naked. This practice has started in the country. (Original Text in Hindi: *केरला में बीजेपी एमएलए को नंगा कर के औरतों ने पिटा. ये प्रथा देश में शुरू हो चुकी है*.)
Fact
BOOM Hindi first debunked the same video in January this year when it went viral with a false communal claim. We ran a related keyword search and found a Mathrubhumi English news report from January 6, 2023, carrying a screengrab from the viral video. The report states that a man named, Shaji, got beaten by a group of women belonging to the Emperor Emmauel church, a Zionist church in Muriyad, Thrissur, Kerala. People associated with the church had accused Shaji of allegedly sharing a morphed image of the church's priests. We also found other news articles from Manorama Online and India Today covering the incident. Aloor Police had arrested 11 women for assaulting Shaji with charges including attempt to murder. None of these news reports mentioned Shaji as a BJP MLA from Kerala. We also reached out to Aloor police sub-inspector Subind KS who confirmed that the women belonging to the Zionist Church thrashed the man and his family on January 5, 2023. Both the accused and the victims belonged to the same community.