Old Video of Brawl From HP's Mandi Falsely Shared as Fight Over Sexual Assault

This video shows a brawl over a road widening issue in Sarwal in Kotli tehsil under Mandi district in HP.

A video showing a fight between a man and several women, showing the women beating the man up sticks and bricks is being circulated on social media platforms.

What is the claim?: Those sharing have claimed that the man was attacked because he allegedly raped a teenager multiple times.

This post recorded 956.1K views at the time of writing this story. (Archives of similar claims can be found here, here and here.)

What is the truth?: This claim is false.

• The brawl took place over a road widening issue in Sarwal village in Kotli tehsil, which falls under the Mandi district in Himachal Pradesh in 2021.

• The local police confirmed to The Quint that the incident took place two years back in 2021, and there were no allegations or charges of rape in this matter.

How did we find out?: At first, we divided the viral video into multiple keyframes and ran a reverse image search on Google on some of them.

• We came across a report by News18 Hindi from 20 February 2021 where the cover image matched the frames of the viral video.

• Swipe right to see the comparisons.

• News18 Hindi reported that the brawl occurred over a road widening issue on 17 February 2021.

• The road in question passed through the Sarwal village, which falls under the Dhanyara panchayat in the Kotli tehsil in the Mandi district, and was narrow.

• The women in the video belonged to the Mahila Mandal and began the work of widening the road.

• However, the man whose land was being used was not happy with this and indulged in an argument with the women. Later, this turned into a physical fight between the two parties.

Police's Statement: The Quint contacted the local police at Kotli Chowki and spoke to Nand Lal, Honourable Assistant Sub-Inspector (HASI). He confirmed that there were no allegations or charges of rape.

• He also told us that the First Information Report (FIR) was filed by both parties in this matter.

• Additionally, we found that this video had been circulated before with the same claim on social media platforms in 2022. You can see those claims here and here.

Conclusion: The video of the brawl between several women and a man is being shared is a false claim. The physical fight took place over widening a road that passed through the Sarwal village in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh.

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