CLAIM
Amid the ongoing protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, a video is being circulated on social media, which claims that Hindu minorities are being tortured in Pakistan. The claim further says that Hindu women are being thrashed by police officials.
The video shows some women being dragged and beaten up by police officials in the presence of a group of people.
Several social media users have shared the video on Twitter and Facebook with the same claim.
TRUE OR FALSE?
False.
Firstly, it’s not a recent incident. It dates back to January 2019. Secondly, a Dawn article identified one of the women in the video as Haleema Bibi.
The incident took place when ASI Ghulam Mohammad Jappah forcibly entered the house by giving an excuse that he, along with two other constables, were arresting a suspect.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We broke the video into multiple key frames and reverse searched each frame on Yandex which led us to a tweet shared on 6 January 2019. The tweet written in Urdu loosely translates to “Police torture women. This incident is the case of the new Chiniot police in Punjab.”
Taking a cue from the tweet, we then searched on Google using keywords “Pakistan police beat woman Chiniot police” and found an article published by The Express Tribune dated 5 January 2019.
The article carried visuals of the viral video and mentioned that three police officers were suspended for thrashing women in Chiniot in Pakistan’s Punjab.
We also found a bulletin uploaded by Pakistan based news channel City 41 that mentioned that Assistant Sub- Inspector GM Jappah beat women in Chiniot, who were later admitted to a hospital.
We also found an article published by Dawn on 6 January 2019 with the headline: “Three policemen held for torture of women.”
The article identified one of the women in the video as Haleema Bibi, wife of a person identified only as Nazir. The incident took place when she, along with her sister-in-law Anwari Bibi and four others were in their house in Mohallah Rehmanabad and ASI Ghulam Mohammad Jappah forcibly entered. He was accompanied by two constables and one more person, Aashi Jappah.
According to Dawn, the police officials entered the house by giving the excuse that they were arresting a suspect.
The women were rescued by local residents after the officials beat them and attempted to put them in a vehicle. After the video of the incident went viral on social media, a case was registered and the officers were suspended.
Evidently, while the incident did take place in Pakistan, the women in question are not Hindus but Muslims.
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