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| - Fact Check: Video of boy dancing FALSELY shared as Jalore Dalit student who died after teacher beat him up
A video of a young boy dancing to a Rajasthani song has gone viral on social media falsely claiming to be a Jalore Dalit student.
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India Today Fact Check
This video shows Harish Bheel, a class 2 student from Barmer, Rajasthan. Bheel’s headmaster confirmed this. Meghwal’s father also confirmed this was not his son.
A video of a young boy dancing to a Rajasthani song has gone viral on social media. Those sharing it claimed that this boy was Indra Kumar Meghwal, the nine-year-old Dalit student at Saraswati Vidya Mandir in Jalore, Rajasthan, who recently died after he was allegedly assaulted by his schoolteacher.
According to media reports, the accused Chail Singh reportedly saw Meghwal drinking water from an earthen pot that was “reserved for upper-caste teachers”, and subsequently beat him up. His family claims the assault took place on July 20. Singh has been arrested and booked for murder and under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
One Facebook user who shared the video wrote, “Some memories of Indra. What innocence! How was this poor child even supposed to know that he would lose his life for merely quenching his thirst! It is hard to believe that this poor child got such brutal punishment. Thousand salutes to him!”
AFWA’s investigation found that the boy seen dancing in the viral video is not Indra Kumar Meghwal. He is Harish Bheel, a resident of Barmer, Rajasthan.
AFWA Probe
We compared the appearance of the boy seen in the viral video with some images and videos of Indra Kumar Meghwal and found that the two looked very different. Subsequently, we scanned the comments sections of the viral posts and found a comment that claimed the boy’s name was Harish. The comment added that he was a student at the Gomrakh Dham school in Barmer, Rajasthan.
Per the Facebook profile of the commentor, Tr Chela Ram Raika, he is a teacher at the GUPS Gomrakh Dham School in Barmer. We then looked into the official Facebook Page of Government Upper Primary School Gomrakh Dham. There, we found a longer version of the viral dance video shared on July 30 with the caption, “Class 2 student Harish gave a confident performance on the occasion of ‘No bag day’.”
Harish performed on this independence day as well
AFWA contacted Gunesha Ram Choudhary, the headmaster of Government Upper Primary School Gomrakh Dham, who confirmed to us that the child in the video is Harish Bheel, a student at his school. “Six-year-old Harish studies in class 2 and has a keen interest in dancing. He gave a rocking performance on August 15 as well,” Choudhary added.
He also sent us a video of Harish’s independence day performance, which can be seen below.
As per Choudhary, Bheel’s viral dance video was shared on the school’s Facebook Page on July 30. However, the school staff was shocked when some people began circulating it in the backdrop of the Jalore incident.
He sent us yet another video of Bheel in which he identifies himself. In this video, his face is clearly visible. Looking at this video, one can easily make out that this is the boy from the viral video.
India Today’s Jalore correspondent Naresh Sarnau Vishnoi further contacted Indra Kumar Meghwal’s family members and showed them the viral video. The deceased student’s father Devaram Meghwal confirmed that the boy in the viral video was not his son.
Thus, we concluded that this video has been shared with a false claim. The boy in the video is not Indra Kumar Meghwal.
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