Old Video Passed Off as 'Naga Sadhu Beaten in Punjab' After AAP's Polls Victory

This is an old video from 2014 showing Sikh men beating up a naga sadhu.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A viral video, which shows men in turban beating up a Naga sadhu (saint) on a road publicly, is being shared along with a claim that the incident happened in Punjab after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won the recently-concluded polls.

Since the results were announced, several such videos have been doing the rounds on social media taking a dig at AAP's power in the state.

However, we found that this is an old video from 2014 and unrelated to the elections or AAP coming to power.

CLAIM

The video is being shared with a caption in Hindi that states, "पंजाब में "आप" की सरकार बन गई है। अब पंजाब में भी कश्मीर जैसी हालत होगी। देखिये, अब पंजाब में क्या हो रहा है ! खालिस्तानी खुलेआम साधु को प्रताड़ित करते हुए, हिन्दुत्व विरोधी मानसिकता का परिचय दे रहे हैं।"

(Translation : AAP government has come in Punjab. Now Punjab will also face the same situation as Kashmir. See, what is happening in Punjab now! Khalistanis openly harassing the saints, introducing the anti-Hindutva mentality.)

Archived version of the post can be seen here.

(Source – Facebook /Screenshot)

Archived versions of similar posts can be seen here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We conducted a simple Google search using 'Sadhu beaten by Sikh men' as the keywords and came across an article published on Daily Mail in 2014.

Daily Mail's report shows details about this incident which happened in 2014.

(Source – Website /Screenshot altered by The Quint)

The article noted that the video clip was probably recorded between 28 June and 10 August in 2014, when the Amarnath Yatra was underway. A poster indicating the same was also visible in the video.

The poster in the video mentions Amaranth Yatra from 28 June to 10 August. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A group of five men could be seen thrashing the sadhu in the one-minute 37 seconds video.

We couldn't find more related to the incident but the fact that it was shared on the internet in 2014 makes it abundantly clear that the video doesn't show Sikh men beating a sadhu in Punjab after AAP won the recently-concluded polls.

Several similar claims have been made ever since election results were declared on 10 March. One video, which showed people raising pro-Khalistan slogans was shared with the same claim.

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