A video depicting a dishevelled girl in distress has gone viral on social media, with a claim that she is a 12-year-old Dalit girl who was allegedly gang-raped by Hindu men and left near a jungle in Gujarat. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video shows a 12-year-old Dalit girl who was allegedly gang-raped by Hindu men and left near a jungle in Gujarat.
Fact: The viral video depicting the rape victim dates back to June 2019, and the incident occurred in the Sindh province of Pakistan. According to news reports, “a 13-year-old minor Hindu girl was intoxicated before being raped by two men in Tando Muhammad Khan in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province on the third day of Eid-ul Fitr. She was found in an unconscious state on a playground.” Furthermore, there are no news reports regarding such a rape incident in Gujarat. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To verify the authenticity of the viral claim, we conducted a relevant keyword search on the internet. However, we were unable to locate any news reports regarding this incident. Later, we performed a reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the viral video, which directed us to a video uploaded on an X (Twitter) handle named Bilal Farooqi on 8 June 2021. He describes himself as a news editor. The tweet’s description states that an “11-year-old girl in Sujawal, Sindh, was reportedly abducted, administered an intoxicant, and raped. She was later beaten and left at a ground.”
Later, taking a cue from the above post we conducted a keyword (#Justiceforjamna) search on X, which led us to several other posts (here, here, here, and here) featuring the same video. On 8 June 2019, in response to the same post, official information about police action in this matter was provided from the X handle of former Pakistan Minister Sherry Rehman. She also urged users to not share the video of the girl.
Further search led us to several news reports (here, here, & here) regarding this incident. According to a Times of India article dated 9 June 2019, a minor Hindu girl was reportedly intoxicated before being raped by two men in Tando Mohammad Khan, located in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, on the third day of Eid-ul Fitr. The 13-year-old survivor, a resident of Sujawal in Tando Muhammad Khan, was discovered in an unconscious state on a playground. The victim had apparently gone out to purchase groceries, and on her way to the shop, two men called her to them, forced her to drink liquor, and raped her. From all this information, it is evident that the viral video depicts visuals of a rape victim from Pakistan, not from India.
To sum it up, an old video of a rape victim from Pakistan is being shared with a false communal narrative attributing it to Gujarat.
