A disturbing video showing the aftermath of a 19-year old woman stabbed to death by her ex-fiancé in Gurugram, Haryana is going viral online with a false claim that the teen was murdered by a Muslim man.
BOOM reached out to Gurugram Police who confirmed that both the accused and victim belong to the Hindu community and that there is no communal angle to murder.
The viral video, which is 34 seconds long, shows a visibly distressed middle-aged woman beating a young man with her sandal. Blood stains can be seen on the white kurta pajama the man is dressed in. The two are standing in a narrow alley stained with blood. The camera pans out to show the motionless body of a young woman lying in a pool of blood as bystanders watch the horrifying scene unfold.
The video is circulating with both Hindi and English captions which falsely claim the teenager was stabbed to death by a Muslim man.
The caption when translated claims, "In Gurugram's Molaheda village one 'Abdul' stabbed a Hindu girl to death and secular Hindus who were standing there kept making a video,"
[Original text: गुरुग्राम के मल्हेड़ा गांव में एक अब्दुल ने हिंदू लड़की की चाकुओं से गोद कर हत्या कर दी और वहां पर खड़े कुछ सेकुलर हिंदू वीडियो बनाते रहें।
BOOM has not included the video due to its graphic nature.
The same fake and communal claim is also viral in English.
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral claim is fake and that the assailant and victim belong to the Hindu community. We did a keyword search and found a Facebook post containing the viral video plus another video that showed CCTV footage capturing the stabbing on camera.
The CCTV footage shows the incident from a different angle. Ramkumar, dressed in white can be seen standing in a narrow alley. The teen accompanied by her mother appear in the alley. A heated exchange breaks out between the young woman and Ramkumar when all of a sudden he starts stabbing her. The victim's mother tries to stop the attack but is unable to do so. The mother, however, manages to restrain the assailant and starts beating him with her sandal. The young woman collapses in the alley and can be seen bleeding profusely. Onlookers at the scene do not intervene to help.
When we compared the CCTV footage to the viral video, we found that the two clips matched and that the young woman, her mother, and the assailant can be seen in both videos.
The Facebook post stated the accused's name as Rajkumar and the victim's name as Neha.
We then searched for news reports and found a Dainik Bhaskar article that had screenshots from the CCTV video and the viral video.
The incident took place on July 10, 2023, at noon in Gurugram's Molaheda village, according to Dainik Bhaskar. The accused named Rajkumar stabbed his former fiancee Neha to death. The stabbing took place in front of the victim's mother. The victim and assailant were said to be engaged a few months ago, however, due to some reason the engagement was called off. Despite this, the accused Rajkumar remained adamant about getting married to the girl. According to the report, both are residents of Uttar Pradesh's Budaun district. The accused was taken into custody. A murder case has been filed against him.
We found an article about the incident on Aaj Tak's website that had the same details mentioned above.
We also found a video uploaded by Gurugram Police’s Twitter account giving details of the incident. Gurugram ACP Varun Dahiya said the name of the accused was Ramkumar son of Surajpal. A knife and a country-made pistol were recovered from the accused.
According to an FIR filed at Gurugram’s Palam Vihar police station, the victim and accused were residents of Uttar Pradesh’s Budaun district but lived on rent in Molaheda village in Gurugram. The victim worked as a domestic help along with her mother.
The FIR also states a prospective marriage between the victim and the accused was discussed six months ago but was called off. The girl's family alleged Ramkumar was a drug addict.
BOOM reached out to Palam Vihar Police. ACP Naveen Sharma denied the communal angle to the incident and confirmed both the victim and accused are Hindus. Sharma added that the two were engaged four months ago but that the engagement was broken off.