After Palghar, Attack on Punjab Seer Given a False Communal Spin
The police and even the seer has dismissed any political or communal angle to the story.
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CLAIM
A video which shows an injured seer receiving treatment in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur is being widely shared online with a claim that the seer was brutally attacked by ‘Peacefuls’ at his ashram.
Though the claim doesn’t directly use the word ‘Muslim’ it says ‘Peacefuls’ – a sarcastic reference to Muslims in context of the oft-made statement that Islam is a ‘religion of peace’.
The claim which is in Hindi reads, “पालघर कांड के बाद अब पंजाब में संत पुष्पेंद्र स्वरूप जी महाराज पर शांतिदूतों ने हमला किया है, आखिर ये साधु संत की हत्या कांग्रेस शासित राज्यो में ही क्यों हो रही है??”
[Translation: After the Palghar incident, another seer in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur was attacked by peacefuls. Why are these saints being attacked in Congress ruled states.]
An archived version of the post can be seen here.
The post is being widely shared on Facebook.
It has also been shared on Twitter and has been viewed over 96,000 times.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The message is being shared with a false claim. The police and even the seer has dismissed any political or communal angle to the story. In a video message posted on Hoshiarpur police’s official Twitter handle, the seer clarified that it was a case of robbery and he was attacked because he retaliated.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We searched on Twitter with the relevant keywords and came across a tweet uploaded by the official Twitter handle of Hoshiarpur police in which the seer himself said that the case was neither communal nor politically motivated.
“I was attacked two days ago and this was done by some drug addicts, the ones who demand money. I got hurt because I retaliated, tried to uncover their face and punched them. So they hit me with knives in retaliation. It doesn’t look like a politically motivated case. There were two boys and both of them ran away after stealing money. But the police has been very cooperative,” Swami Pushpendra said.
We further got in touch with Hoshiarpur police and they told us that they have made four preliminary arrests. The police officer further told us that there is no communal angle or political angle to this story.
Earlier last week, an attack on two seers in Maharashtra’s Palghar was also given a communal angle but that too was debunked not just by fact-checkers but also by the state home minister and police.
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