Claim: A video shows a group of male lawyers beating a Hindu girl who was trying to enter the court to raise attention about the police not filing a case regarding the kidnapping and rape of her minor sister.
Fact: The claim is false as the video is from 2019 and shows Amrat Shahzadi, a Muslim woman, being assaulted. The incident happened during a court hearing where she was pursuing a case over property.
Content warning: This fact-check contains a graphic video.
On 21 December 2024, a user Baba Banaras posted a video (archive) on X (formerly Twitter) with the caption,
“Dear World,
Raise your voice against Hindu persecutions in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
This heart-wrenching video is from Pakistan in which a Muslim lawyer is kicking and punching a Hindu girl who is trying to enter the Pakistani court,So as to draw attention towards the fact that Pakistani police are not registering a case against the kidnappers and rapists of her minor sister.”
The disturbing clip shows a woman being pushed around and beaten by a group of men who appeared to be lawyers on the premises of what looks like a court.
Fact or Fiction?
To investigate the claim, Soch Fact Check reverse image searched keyframes of the video, which led to an article published by Dunya News on 29 October 2024. The news story features a screenshot of the viral video and states that a woman was “brutally tortured” by lawyers in Shakargarh, a city of Punjab. According to this article, the woman, named Amrat Bibi, was at the court to attend a hearing for her case “but verbal abuse between [the] woman and lawyers turned into a physical clash” and “Police provided cover to the lawyers instead of stopping them.”
92 News HD also published an article on 29 October 2019 featuring a screenshot from the viral video. The story reads that the then-Chief Minister of Punjab Usman Buzdar took notice of the incident off violence in Shakargarh. The report also states that the woman filed a case against a relative of one of the lawyers and they were forcing her to compromise with the other party. On her refusal, they kicked and thrashed her. On the other hand, the lawyers said she was trying to kidnap one of their colleagues along with some accomplices.
Another reverse image search led to a YouTube video published by Voice.pk on 2 November 2019. The same visuals can be seen in the video titled, “Amrat Shahzadi Assaulted by 3 Lawyers in Shakargarh”. The description of the video further reads that Amrat Shahzadi was brutally beaten by three lawyers at Narowal, Shakargarh court for pursuing a case regarding a property dispute. The YouTube report claims she was refused entry and assaulted publicly.
This video also features an interview with the victim, where she describes how she was assaulted by the lawyers. The video also apparently shows an FIR registered by the woman, along with her cousin, against the lawyers.
None of these reports say the woman is Hindu, nor do they make mention of a case of sexual assault, as is asserted in the claim being investigated. All reports mentioned above connect the video to a land dispute court case.
A keyword search on Google led to a news story published by Dawn which mentioned that a case was registered against the lawyers on the “allegation of thrashing a woman petitioner and her cousin in a land dispute case”. The story states her cousin’s name is Abdul Qayyum, as written in the FIR, which is indeed a Muslim name.
Furthermore, the editor of Fact Focus Tahir Imran Mian also tweeted an image of the entire FIR filed against the three lawyers and an image of one of them in handcuffs after he was arrested.
According to this FIR, the woman’s name is Amrat Shahzadi, she is the daughter of Mohammed Suleman and her caste is mentioned as Ansari, which confirms that she belongs to Muslim community. The same video went viral in 2019 with a similar claim and was debunked by another IFCN signatory.
Virality
On X, the video received 109.6k views, 3000 likes and 2100 comments. It was mostly shared by Indian accounts who have posted false information with communal spin in the past. The archived versions can be here and here.
Conclusion: The viral video does not show a Hindu woman being assaulted after not being allowed to file an FIR for a case of rape. The video is from 2019 and shows lawyers beating a woman from a Muslim community during a land dispute case hearing.
Background image in cover photo: ABC News
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