A video is being widely shared on social media in which a woman is holding a girl and crying for help. She is heard saying, “Someone save my daughter.”
In the second half of the video, we can see a girl standing at a protest site talking to the media. In the video, the girl is heard saying, “In Ram Temple, so much money has been invested, and in that Ram Mandir, a Dalit woman has been raped.”
The video is shared with a caption that reads, “Rape of a Dalit woman inside the Ram Temple! If this can happen inside temples, then how can girls stay safe outside!”
SouthCheck found that the claim is false. We found that the viral video is from Haldwani, Uttarakhand, showing a woman and her mother protesting over alleged harassment by her in-laws.
On doing a Google reverse image search, we found that a similar video of the incident was shared by Awaaz Aaj Tak on March 6, with a caption that reads, “Haldwani, Uttarakhand | Latest News — A video from Buddha Park in Haldwani is going viral on social media, showing Gaulapar resident Diksha Palaria sitting in protest, accusing her in-laws of harassment. After the video spread, people gathered at the scene, and her family demanded action at the Haldwani police station. During the protest, her health suddenly deteriorated, after which she was taken to the hospital.”
An Uttarakhand-based hyperlocal media website, Uttarakhand News, had also shared the same video on its Facebook page on March 6, with a caption that reads, “Woman stages protest at Buddha Park in Haldwani, alleges harassment by in-laws.”
The video was also shared by the Facebook page of The Sentinel, an English daily newspaper of Assam, on March 6.
The video was shared with a caption that reads, “A video from Budha Park, Gaulapar, in Haldwani tehsil of Uttarakhand’s Nainital district, showing a woman protesting against alleged harassment by her in-laws, has gone viral on social media. After the video of the woman named Diksha Palariya went viral, the public gathered at the park and, along with her family members, took her to Kotwali Haldwani under the Nainital district police. The video shows Diksha leaning on her mother’s shoulder as her health appears to deteriorate. In the video, the mother is heard requesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to save her daughter.”
Also, while we were not able to find the source of the second video, we found a similar video where the same girl is talking to the media in the attire as seen in the viral video. However, we found that the video was shared by a Facebook page on June 8.
We also found no recent reports of rape or sexual assault at a Ram Temple.
Hence, we can ascertain that the viral video is old and unrelated to the claim.
