A disturbing video showing a man molest and assault a young girl on the pretext of performing an exorcism is viral on social media with a false narrative that the footage is from Gujarat's RMVM School.
In the video, a middle-aged man can be seen pulling a young girl by her hair, pinning her down and touching her inappropriately, as a woman and a child look on.
The clip has been captioned as, "send this video to everyone. This is Valsad's RMVM School's teacher. Share the video so much that the school closes down. A viral video often impacts and enquiries could be done faster. For those who aren't kind, please do not share."
(Original text in Hindi: ये वीडियो सबको भेजिए ये वलसाड के RM VM SCHOOL का टीचर है इसको इतना शेयर करो की ये टीचर और स्कूल दोनों बंद हो जाए । वीडियो वायरल होने से काफी फ़र्क पड़ता है ओर कार्यवाही होती है जिसे दया न आये वो अपना मुंह (टाइपिंग) बंद रखे। )
The clip was also retweeted by Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, spokesperson, BJP, Delhi. It was later deleted after BOOM pointed out that it is among the many fake videos that were viral as incidents stemming from the school.
Since 2017, the school has been relentlessly targeted by disinformation on the Internet, tarnishing its reputation among parents and resulting in fewer students seeking admission to the school.
READ MORE: How Fake News Ruined A School In Gujarat
BOOM has chosen not to include the video due to its graphic nature.
Fact Check
We broke the video into key frames and performed a reverse image search. We were directed to the same video uploaded by Dainik Bhaskar in February, last year. The incident happened in Raipur, where a pastor assaulted a young girl on the pretext of performing an exorcism.
The incident was also reported in Haribhoomi. According to the news report, Dinesh Sahu, an exorcist and a pastor, assaulted the young girl who was his daughter's classmate. Residents of Chhipli village in Chhattisgarh, the victim moved to Raipur's Santoshi nagar, where Sahu performed the exorcism. Sahu was arrested after the video went viral last year.