An Indonesian school's bullying incident from 2020 is falsely shared as Hindu boys beating their Muslim classmate in India - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
September 25, 2023
A video circulating on social media is said to portray a recent bullying incident involving boys from India tormenting their female classmate. Description of one of the posts that shared this video in Hindi translates to “..see here how the boys with Sanghi mentality are behaving with girls wearing Hijab…”.  Here is a fact-check about this claim.
Claim: A recent video of a few Indian boys bullying their female classmate.
Fact: This video is from February 2020 and depicts an incident in Purworejo, Central Java, Indonesia, not India. As per reports, the incident involved three boys from a school called Muhammadiya Need Middle School (SMP Butuh Purworejo), bullying their female classmate, who is reportedly a child with special needs.  Following the video’s initial viral circulation in 2020, the boys involved were reportedly arrested. Therefore, the claim made in the post is False.
An internet keyword search to uncover more information about the viral video led us (here) to a video report by the news outlet Tribune News from February 2020. This video was uploaded on their verified YouTube channel.
According to the news article (also here and here) linked in the YouTube video description, the viral video depicts three boys from Muhammadiyah Need Middle School (SMP Butuh Purworejo) in Purworejo, Central Java, Indonesia, bullying their female classmate.
The boys in this video can be seen kicking, slapping, and beating the girl, who is reported to be a child with special needs (here). After it became viral in 2020, police arrested the boys involved in this violent act (here).
To sum it up, the claim that the video is recent and originates from India is false. The actual incident took place in Indonesia in February 2020.