Video of Monks Beaten on Suspicion of 'Child Lifting' in MP Shared as Delhi

The video is from Madhya Pradesh's Dhar district when the sadhus were beaten over suspicion of being child-lifters.

The video claims that two child kidnappers disguised as sadhus (monks) were caught in Delhi.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)

A 10-second clip is doing the rounds on Facebook with the claim that two child kidnappers disguised as sadhus (monks) were caught in Delhi. In the video, a mob can be seen assaulting them inside the car.

However, we found the incident took place in Madhya Pradesh's Dhar in July and not Delhi, as claimed. Further, as per the police investigation, the two were mistaken to be child kidnappers.

CLAIM

A user named 'Arjun Singh' posted the video on Facebook on 31 July with the claim that, "they are child kidnappers, and if anyone sees them, inform the police."

The text in the video reads: "They were caught in Delhi today."

The video, at the time of writing this article, has 2.2 million views and over 1.26 lakh shares.

An archive of the Facebook post can be found here. 

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

Social media users have shared the video on Facebook along with similar claims and the archived versions can be accessed here, here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

We looked for news reports related to the incident and came across an article by India Today, which was published on 20 July.

The headline of the story read, "Mob thrashes sadhus on suspicion of being child lifters in Madhya Pradesh's Dhar."

The report, that also carried the video, read that the two monks were beaten by the mob in Dhannad village of Dhar district over rumours of child kidnapping.

The video was also published on India Today report.

(Source: India Today/Screenshot)

According to report by NDTV, the two men were from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and were going to Ratlam from Indore in the car. They had stopped at Pithampur Sector 1 of Dhar district to ask for directions from a boy, who ran away suspecting them to be child-kidnappers.

Thereafter, locals had gathered there and started thrashing them and later took them to the police.

We got in touch with the Inspector General of police of Indore, Harinarayanachari Mishra, who told us that the two monks were beaten up over suspicion of child abduction in Dhar.

Further, we accessed a copy of the FIR with the help of Dhar's Superintendent of Police, Aditya Pratap Singh, which showed that the case was registered on 19 July and four people have been arrested in connection with it so far.

CHILD-KIDNAPPING RUMOURS IN 2018

In 2018, India witnessed multiple incidents of lynching over suspicion of being child-lifters.

According to a report by IndiaSpend, between 1 January, 2017, and 5 July, 2018, 33 persons were killed and at least 99 injured in 69 reported cases due to mob attacks over child-lifting rumours.

The report further said that of the 69 cases, about 77 percent was attributed to fake news spread on social media.

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