A video of a burqa-clad woman complaining about how some miscreants tattooed her mentally ill son’s forehead is being circulated widely across social media platforms. The video is being shared with a claim that Hindu vigilantes tattooed ‘Jai Bholenath’ on the forehead of a Muslim boy by heating iron rods and that the incident took place in UP’s Bareilly district. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Hindu vigilantes tattooed ‘Jai Bholenath’ on the forehead of a Muslim boy by heating iron rods, in UP’s Bareilly district.
Fact: The victim and the accused in this incident belong to minority community and are cousins. According to the police, the accused had written a religious phrase on the victim’s forehead, using a marker pen. Further the victim’s family requested a compromise in the matter, leading to the decision not to register an FIR. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
It is true that a Muslim boy’s forehead has been tattooed in the Bareilly district of Uttar Pradesh. However, there is no communal angle in this incident, as both the victim and the individuals responsible belong to the same Muslim community.
Online search with appropriate keywords directed us to a tweet from the official Bareilly police Twitter account, in which they were addressing a tweet that contained similar allegations as the viral post. According to the tweet from the Bareilly police, the individual responsible for the incident has been identified as Shadab Khan, who is a cousin of the victim. He used a marker pen to write a religious phrase. Furthermore, it was noted that the victim’s mother did not file a complaint because they are relatives.
Further search yielded a news article that covered the incident. According to the report, both the victim and the accused belong to a minority community. “Inspector Rajesh Kumar stated that the family initially requested a compromise in the matter, leading to the decision not to register an FIR,” the report added.
Furthermore, in our communication with the Premnagar police, they explicitly rejected any communal connection to the incident. They also reaffirmed that both the victim and the accused are cousins and that the accused had indeed used a marker to write ‘Jai Bholenath’ on the victim’s forehead. The family of the victim chose not to file a formal case.
To sum it up, there is no communal angle to the incident, wherein a religious sentence is tattooed on a Muslim youth’s forehead in Bareilly.
