Old video of Pakistan rape survivor passed off as casteist incident in Gujarat

By: Praveen Kumar
January 16 2024

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A 2019 video of a minor rape survivor from Pakistan has been shared with a casteist narrative, claiming that it is from India. (Source: X/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts)

(Trigger Warning: This article contains references to sexual assault and rape, which may be distressing for some readers. Reader discretion is advised.)

What is the claim?

A video showing a distressed girl rolling on the ground has been circulating on social media platform X. The video is accompanied by captions claiming she is a 12-year-old girl who was gang-raped and abandoned in a jungle in Gujarat, India. These captions also suggest that she is a Harijan – a term used for lower caste or Dalit Hindus – and that the perpetrators were Hindus.

The posts sharing this video on platform X have garnered tens of thousands of views. (Source: X/Screenshots/Edited by Logically Facts)

However, this claim is false. The video in question is an older one from Pakistan and has no connection to Gujarat.

What we found

Using keywords from the viral post and conducting a reverse image search on screenshots of the viral video, we discovered numerous posts on platform X from 2019 sharing the same video. On June 8, 2019, Pakistani human rights activist Kapil Dev posted a similar video, reporting that a 12-year-old Hindu girl was allegedly gang-raped in Tando Muhammad Khan, Sindh – a city in Pakistan. Later that day, Dev also shared photos of the accused rapists, noting that two primary suspects, Roshan Shaikh and Rajab Shaikh, were arrested and an FIR filed.

Bilal Farooqi, editor of The Express Tribune, a Pakistani English-language newspaper, also shared a post on platform X on June 8, 2019, with blurred images of the girl, stating that she had been allegedly abducted, drugged, and raped. Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s former Federal Minister for Climate Change & Environment, reposted Farooqi’s content the same day.

Several Pakistani news outlets covered the incident. Gulf News published an article on June 8, 2019, with censored visuals identical to the viral video. Dawn, another Pakistani news outlet, reported that the survivor was Hindu and had been found by her father and brother near Sugar Mills ground. Her father had then informed the Tando Muhammad Khan police and taken her to the city’s civil hospital.

Logically Facts reached out to a reporter from Tando Muhammad Khan, who confirmed that the viral video originated from the 2019 incident. This reporter, preferring to remain anonymous, also verified that no similar recent incidents have been reported.

The verdict

An old video depicting a minor rape survivor from Pakistan has been misrepresented on social media, falsely claiming to show an incident in India with an added casteist angle. Consequently, we have labeled this claim as false.