“Sub-inspector Mahendra Chaudhary of Jodhpur district mercilessly beaten to death by this Dalit. Is this what Bharat bandh is about? Share this widely” (translated).
Along with this message have been posted three photographs, claiming that a sub-inspector was brutally beaten to death by a Dalit protester during Bharat bandh of 2 April.
These photographs have been posted by the Facebook page ‘Kattar Hindu Bhagwa Raj’ which has a large following of more than 35 lakh. At the time of writing, this post has been shared almost 70,000 times by Facebook users.
This post has also been shared by another Facebook page ‘Bharat Ki Awaaz’ which has a whopping 3.9 million followers.
Another page ‘Ek Naam Hindustan’ with a following of over 66 lakh too has shared these photographs with the provocative message.
We discovered that these images are being shared on social media by the minute, not just by Facebook pages with lakhs of members but even by individual users.
Alt News found out that these pictures are of June 2017 and they were taken in Uttar Pradesh.
According to a report by Daily Mail, a teenage school girl was raped during treatment at the Jagruti hospital in Kanpur, UP. The crowd that had gathered to protest turned violent, indulging in destruction of property and even assaulted the police officer on duty at the hospital.
The picture below has been taken from the Daily Mail article.
Recently according to a report by News18, sub-inspector Mahendra Chaudhray was on duty during Bharat bandh on 3 April when he had a heart attack. He was being treated at a hospital in Jodhpur but with no improvement in his condition, he was referred to a hospital in Ahmedabad. He succumbed on the way to Ahmedabad.
On the other hand, Navbharat Times reported that Mahendra Chaudhary who was injured during the Bharat bandh protests had succumbed to his injuries.
The above screenshot is of the Google search on Mahendra Chaudhary. It reveals that while he had indeed passed away, the photographs circulating on social media along with the message are fake.
(This article was originally published in Alt News, and has been republished here with permission.)
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