Old Video of Woman Being Assaulted Shared With a Communal Spin

The incident happened in Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasam district in 2017.

An old incident has been revived with the false claim that it took place in Kerala, when in reality, the video is from Andhra Pradesh.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

An old video of a woman being harassed is being circulated online with a claim that the incident happened in Kerala pinning the reason on “Hindus being a minority” in the region.

While it’s true that the incident did happen:

• It happened in Andhra Pradesh and not Kerala.
• It is an incident from 2017.
• There is no communal angle to the story.

CLAIM

The claim along with the video reads: “केरल में हो रही महिलाओं से छेड़छाड़ का वीडियो यह कोई पहला वीडियो वायरल नहीं इस प्रकार की घटना हर दिन घटित होती है इसका मुख्य उद्देश्य हिन्दुओं का अल्पसंख्यक होना”

(Translated: Video of women being harassed in Kerala is not the first viral video. Such incidents keep taking place. The prime objective is Hindus being in minority.)

The tweet shared by one Paras Gupta had garnered 4,000 retweets at the time of publishing the article.

(Source: Twitter/ Screenshot)

Several social media users shared the video on Facebook and Twitter with the same claim.

(Source: Twitter/ Screenshot)

(Source: Facebook/ Screenshot)

The Quint also received a query on the claim being made in the video on its WhatsApp tipline number.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We scanned the replies on Paras Gupta’s tweet and found that users pointed out that the people in the video are not speaking in Malayalam, but Telugu.

Using relevant keyword search, we came across a video uploaded by TV9 Telugu in 2017 with the caption: “Rape attempt on girl filmed and uploaded on Social Media.” The video identified the location as Kanigiri in Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasam district.

TV9 Telugu had the visuals in 2017 and mentioned that it is from Kanigiri.(Source: YouTube/ Screenshot)

We also found an article published by NDTV in September 2017 mentioning the details of the case. The article stated that a 19-year-old college student was groped and assaulted by her boyfriend and the video was shared by the accused and two of his friends on social media.

The three men, in question, were then arrested in Prakasam district.

“The police say the girl and her friend had gone to a temple to meet the accused man, B Sai, whom she had reportedly known for over a year,” the report added.

Regarding the video being circulated with communal claims, K Venkateswara Rao, circle inspector, Kanigiri confirmed to The Quint that there is no communal angle to the incident.

Evidently, an old incident has been revived with the false claim that it took place in Kerala, when in reality, the video is from Andhra Pradesh.

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