Video of a Dalit man's head being shaved by a mob is shared with a misleading caste angle - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
March 29, 2023
A video is being shared on social media in which a mob is seen shaving a young man’s head and later assaulting him. According to the post’s description, his name is Lakhan, a Dalit, and the incident happened in Meerut. The later part of this post’s description reads, ‘wonder where are all those leaders who go for photo ops to eat in Dalits house now vanished ?’ Let’s fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: A young Dalit man named Lakhan’s head was shaved, and he was assaulted by a mob in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut.
Fact: According to the news reports, the incident did happen in Meerut. Some people in the Brahmpuri area assaulted a man named Lakhan Kumar. The police clarified that the assaulters and Lakhan both belong to the Dalit community and related to each other. Hence, the claim made in the post is Misleading.
We performed a keyword search on the internet to know if such an incident as claimed in the post happened in Meerut involving a person named Lakhan. This search led us to news reports that contained the same video. According to TV 9 and Amar Ujala, a man named Lakhan Kumar was assaulted by the people of Mangat Puram Basti of the Brahmpuri police station area on allegations of molestation. These media reports did not mention the details regarding Lakhan’s caste.
Further search led us to a tweet by The Dalit Voice, with claimed similar narrative to the viral post. Under this tweet, Meerut police responded stating that both the parties involved in this incident are relatives.
दोनों पक्ष आपस में रिश्तेदार हैं। एक के द्वारा दूसरे पर आरोप लगाए गए हैं। प्रकरण में मुकदमा दर्ज है। 4 लोग गिरफ्तार किए गए है।
An Indian Express article published regarding the same incident reports that the police said that both Lakhan and his attackers were Dalits. ‘The police said they arrested four of the assaulters and were looking for the others, ‘ Indian Express stated.  The viral post alludes that a dalit man was beaten and assaulted by people belonging to other communities which is not the case.
The FIR registered in the case also does not mention any sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
To sum up, video of a Dalit man’s head being shaved by a mob is shared with a misleading caste angle.