Several posts (here, here, and here) featuring a video of a few people brutally beating a young girl are being widely shared across social media platforms. In the video, a man can be seen hitting the girl with a stick and pulling her hair mercilessly. The claim accompanying the video suggests that the video depicts an 8-year-old girl from the Dalit community being beaten by Thakurs for drinking water from a temple without permission in Uttar Pradesh. In this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in these posts.
Claim: Video depicting an 8-year-old Dalit girl being beaten by upper caste men for drinking water from a temple without permission in Uttar Pradesh.
Fact: The Amethi Police clarified on X(Twitter) that the video is from the year 2021, and all the accused in this incident were arrested and sent to jail. According to reports, the viral video shows a young Dalit girl allegedly being beaten for mobile theft in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh, in 2021. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
After this video went viral on social media, the Amethi police responded to a post on X(Twitter) on 16 April 2024, clarifying that the video is from the year 2021. The tweet (archived link) from the Amethi police reads: “The video is from 2021, and a case was registered under relevant sections at the Amethi police station. All three accused involved in the assault incident were arrested and sent to jail. Please do not spread misleading news”.
To learn more about this incident, we conducted a relevant keyword search which led us to several news reports featuring screenshots from the viral video in the year 2021. According to a report from ‘Times Now Navbharat’, “the incident occurred in Raipur Phulwari village in Amethi. Two mobile phones belonging to village resident Suraj Soni were stolen. The girl, who was later beaten, was caught stealing one of the phones in CCTV footage. Instead of reporting the matter to the police, Soni and a friend apprehended the girl and took her to Soni’s house.”
According to a report from ‘The Times of India’, “Arpit Kapoor, the Police Circle officer in Amethi, informed TOI that an FIR was lodged in this case upon receiving a complaint from the father of the victim girl on 27 December 2021. The girl’s father informed the police that his daughter is mentally unstable and entered the accused’s house after losing her way. The accused mistook her for a thief and assaulted her. A case has been registered against the accused under relevant sections of the POCSO and SC/ST Act. The three accused, Shubham Gupta, Rahul Soni, and Suraj Soni have been arrested.” Additional news reports regarding this incident can be found here, here, and here. From all this information, it is evident that the viral video dates back to 2021 and depicts an assault on a young Dalit girl, allegedly for mobile theft.
The Amethi Police also shared information about this incident on X(Twitter) in 2021. The posts can be seen here and here (archived links here and here).
To sum up, an old video from Amethi depicting a young Dalit girl allegedly being beaten for mobile theft is now being shared with misleading a claim.
