Video of man assaulting a woman in Madhya Pradesh falsely shared as 'love jihad' incident

By: Rahul Adhikari
May 31 2023

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(Trigger Warning: Mentions of physical assault. Reader discretion is advised.)

Context
A video claiming to show an incident of 'love jihad' has been circulating on social media recently. The video shows a man brutally beating a young woman. The accompanying post cryptically alleges that the man in the video is a Muslim and the woman is a Hindu, suggesting it is a case of 'love jihad'. ‘Love Jihad’ is believed to be a conspiracy theory that suggests that Muslim men systematically lure Hindu women into relationships and marriages to convert them to Islam. The viral post's caption read: "Another father's angel in the grip of Abdullah Panchar Wale. All girls should understand one thing, do not cheat your parents in the affair of love. 🥺😰😣😭😢🙏🏻. The father's fairies who want to love Abdul should see whether they can endure such a hard blow to the face or not. #loveजिहाद (translated from Hindi).” The viral post has received over 11,000 views so far. 

In Fact
A reverse image search took us to a news report published by Hindustan Times on December 25, 2022, which carried a screengrab of the viral video. The report said that the video showed an incident where a man assaulted a woman in Madhya Pradesh's Rewa after he asked him to marry her. Hindustan Times also named the man as Pankaj Tripathi. The report further said that a senior police official stated, "The victim and the accused were in a relationship, and a dispute took place between the two, after which he beat her up." Initially, the victim's family visited the police station but later refused to file a complaint. The police detained the accused under section 151 (disturbing public peace) of the Indian Penal Code(IPC) but later released him. After the video went viral, a case was registered under section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the IPC and the man was arrested. The victim's family also filed a complaint against the person who filmed and circulated the video, leading to a case being registered under the Information Technology (IT) Act.

We also came across a tweet from the official Twitter account of the public relations officer (PRO) of Rewa district administration from December 25, 2022, which said that Tripathi had assaulted a woman in village Dhera, Rewa, and was arrested by the police in Uttar Pradesh. "On the report of the police, the District Transport Officer has canceled the driving license of Pankaj Tripathi," the tweet further stated and carried the official documentation of the same.

The office of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had tweeted a video stating that the illegally built house of the accused, Pankaj Tripathi, was demolished with a bulldozer. The tweet also mentioned that Tripathi's driving license was canceled. "No one who commits atrocities on women on the land of Madhya Pradesh will be spared," the tweet further said. A report by Hindustan Times on the demolition added that Tripathi was a professional driver, therefore his license was canceled.

Logically Facts also reached out to the Superintendent of Police of Rewa, Vivek Singh, who confirmed that there was no communal angle in the incident.

The Quint's WebQoof had fact-checked this video in December 2022 and quoted the Sub-Divisional Officer of Police of Mauganj, Naveen Dubey, saying that both the accused and the survivor were from the Hindu community and even the same caste. He said that the communal claims being spread with the video were false. Several fact-checking organizations debunked the communal claim after the video went viral in December 2022. 

The Verdict
A video showing a 24-year-old man named Pankaj Tripathi beating a girl in Madhya Pradesh was falsely shared, claiming it to be a case of 'love jihad'. Both the parties are from the same religion and caste and no communal angle is involved in the incident. The claim about the old incident being related to ‘love jihad’ is false.