Old Clip of House Help Contaminating Food Given Communal Spin

We spoke to the journalist who had covered the incident in 2011 and he confirmed that the accused was not a Muslim.

A viral video showing a domestic help allegedly contaminating food by mixing urine in it in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal is being shared with a false communal spin.

However, we spoke to journalist Praveen Dubey, who had covered the incident in 2011, and he confirmed that it’s a false claim. Several news reports had then identified the accused as ‘Asha Kaushal’.

CLAIM

The claim along with the video reads: “सत्य घटना । भोपाल में मुकेश सूरी जी ने 'हसीना' नामक मुस्लिम नौकरानी को काम पर रखा और नौकरानी ने अपने इस्लामी मज़हब के अनुसार आचरण करना शुरू कर दिया!! अपने थूक और पेशाब से बना कर खिलाती थी खाना!”

(Translated: True incident! In Bhopal, Mukesh Suri ji hired a Muslim domestic help named ‘Haseena’ and she started behaving according to her Islamic religion!! Food was made from her spit and urine.)

The video was shared widely on Facebook and Twitter with the same claim.

WHAT WE FOUND

We searched on YouTube with relevant keywords and came across a video that was uploaded in 2015 that showed the same visuals as that in the viral video and carried the logo of ‘News24’.

At the end of the 02:45-minute long video, the bulletin mentions the name of the reporter as Praveen Dubey.

Speaking to The Quint’s WebQoof team, Dubey said that it’s an old incident and that the domestic help in question was not a Muslim.

On conducting multiple searches on YouTube, we found that another YouTube handle called ‘Jansandesh News’ had uploaded a bulletin on 17 October 2011 that covered the same incident and mentioned the name of the domestic help as ‘Asha.’

A Times of India report that was published on 18 October 2011 identified the domestic help as 55-year-old Asha Kaushal. On the complaint of her employer, Mukesh Suri, she was then booked under Section 270 of the IPC.

According to the report, the police had then said that Suri used to find several household items missing which prompted him to install CCTV cameras in his house.

During the interrogation, Asha listed several reasons which included employer’s “alleged undesirable behaviour towards her young daughter, which forced her to resort to this act for teaching him a lesson,” the police had reportedly said then.

“The police, however, said that they did not believe this version of her as they never received any complaint from her or her daughter in this regard,” the report added.

We also came across a 2011 Jagran report that, too, identified the domestic help as Asha Kaushal.

The said video was viral with a similar claim in 2020 as well and fact-checking websites BOOM and India Today had debunked the claim then.

Evidently, a 2011 incident of a domestic help contaminating food at a house in Bhopal was revived with a false claim that the accused was a Muslim.

(With inputs from SM Hoax Slayer)

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