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| - Fact Check: This video DOESN'T show NCP leader attacked by mob for comments on Lord Rama
India Today Fact Check found that the video is from 2015 and thus unrelated to Jitendra Awhad's recent controversial comments.
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India Today Fact Check
This video is more than eight years old and has nothing to do with Jitendra Awhad's recent comments on Lord Rama.
National Congress Party leader and MLA Jitendra Awhad on January 3 courted controversy after he claimed that Lord Rama was non-vegetarian. Awhad reportedly said: “Lord Ram is ours. He belongs to the Bahujans. The Ram who hunts and eats is ours, we belong to the Bahujans. We follow the ideals of Ram and today we eat mutton.”
Multiple cases have been registered against him and Maha Vikas Aghadi leaders have advised him to refrain from making such controversial statements. Awhad has expressed his regret for hurting religious sentiments.
Now, a video allegedly showing the NCP leader being assaulted by a mob is making the rounds online. A Facebook user wrote, "Sharad Pawar's Party MLA Jitendra Awhad beaten for his derogatory comments on Prabhu Ram. Karyakarta of Shiv Pratishthan Sangli gave royal treatment for hurting sentiments of Hindus.” The archive of a similar post can be seen here.
India Today Fact Check found that the viral video is more than eight years old and has nothing to do with Jitendra Awhad's comments on Lord Rama.
Our Probe
We found this video’s screengrabs in several news reports published in July 2015. According to them, the incident took place in Sangli, Maharashtra, when a fight broke out between two groups at Awhad's program.
During the event, the leader allegedly made derogatory remarks about veteran Indian writer and historian Babasaheb Purandare and demanded his prestigious Maharashtra Bhushan award be revoked. Irked by these comments, some members of Shivpratishthan Sangathan came to the stage to beat up Jitendra Awhad. A fight subsequently ensued between them and Awhad’s party workers.
Taking a clue from this, we searched about this incident on YouTube and found the video of the stage fight uploaded to India Today’s channel on July 21, 2015. This video report also mentioned the same details.
We also noticed that the viral video contained another clip of Awhad walking out accompanied by a group of people that was not part of the 2015 video. When we reverse-searched screengrabs from that part, we found it shared on Awhad’s own YouTube account on November 27, 2023. This too predates his recent controversial statement.
We also found no news reports of the NCP leader being assaulted following his controversial comments. Thus, it is more than clear that the viral video was shared with a false claim.
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