The video of a Kerala man in Qatar being thrashed by a large group of men has gone viral on the social media.
On May 8, a mob attacked the man at Safari Mall in the capital of Doha, alleging that he posted inflammatory comments in Malayalam about Islam and the Prophet.
Even as the Qatar Government and Indian officials have appealed for calm, a report on Doha News suggests that an audio message could have been used to mobilise the crowd that carried out the attack.
The 6 minute 30 second long clip has the voice of an unidentified man lashing out in Malayalam. He says,
In spite of making a lot of money in a Muslim state, he has abused Allah. It will be easy to track him down through Facebook.
The voice exhorts people to track the man and ends with a call to spread the word on the social media.
You all circulate a lot of unnecessary stuff on social media, this is a clip that is important, so circulate this.
According to a BBC report, the incident took place near a mall in Doha on Friday, when a group approached and confronted the man about his comments on Facebook.
In the video, which is the only evidence of the incident at the moment, the man is seen getting manhandled and abused in Malayalam, while some people are seen filming the incident.
However, in a Doha News report, Girish Kumar, the president of the Indian Cultural Center in Qatar says,
It was unclear whether the victim was actually the person responsible for posting any inflammatory material online.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)