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Social media users are sharing a video of a teenager whose face has been blackened by a group of people.
Users claim that the boy is a Muslim who is allegedly being harassed by Hindu extremists.
A social media user shared the video with a caption that reads, “14-year-old Muslim child bullied and tortured by Hindu extremists. # Narendra Modi you will have to face justice very soon.”
SouthCheck found the claim to be misleading. We found that the boy in the video hails from the Dalit community.
On doing a Google Reverse Image Search, we found that the same video was uploaded by NDTV on October 23, 2022. The video was shared with a report suggesting that the mob was assaulting a Dalit man after he was accused of stealing a toilet seat in Uttar Pradesh's Bahraich. As a part of the assault, his face was blackened and his head was shaved.
We found the incident was also reported by India Today. The report suggested that the name of the victim was Rajesh Kumar who was assaulted by the crowd that was cheering on and recording video as his head was being shaved and his face blackened.
Bahraich police had also replied to a tweet from the Aam Aadmi Party, Uttar Pradesh. The report suggested that action was taken against the accused people under the SC/ST Act.
Hence, we can ascertain that the video does not show a Muslim being assaulted.
