Hyderabad: A youth in Karimnagar was beaten up by a group of men for reportedly harassing a minor girl.
While the group did comprise people from a Hindu social service organisation, the incident was being wrongly portrayed as a “communal clash” — it was being projected to look like a group of Hindus had beaten up a Muslim boy while forcing him into chanting ‘Jai Sri Ram’. Eventually, however, the boy apologised for bending the facts. The video of the boy getting beaten up went viral on Saturday following which, political leaders spread false reports of communal tension in Karimnagar.
Karimnagar Super-intendent V.B. Kamala-san Reddy told this newspaper, “The boy, who is an adult, was attending to his relative who had been admitted to a hospital in Karimnagar. A man working in the hospital, who also happens to be a member of a Hindu organisation, noticed that the boy was eve-teasing a minor girl. Subsequently, he and his associate tried to stop him but he resisted, which led to them beating him up. Their intention was to protect the minor girl from the harassment. There was no communal motive behind the act.”
A case under section 354 of the IPC and the POSCO Act was filed against the boy.
The video was later deleted by a city-based politician from his twitter account, and another video was uploaded in which the accused is seen apologising. “I am sorry for misleading everybody. It was a personal issue,” he said in the video.
