An image of a minor girl is being shared on social media with the claim that she was abducted, raped and killed in a village in the Shravasti district of Uttar Pradesh and the perpetrator is apparently a Rohingya Muslim, named Muzaffar Ali. It is also claimed that he was living in the village as a Hindu under the alias Sheel Kumar.
Shubham Sharma (@Shubham_fd), the founder of propaganda website Neo Politico, tweeted the picture on June 6 with the following caption: "A Brahmin minor girl was kidnapped, raped and killed by a Rohingya who was living with a Hindu name in the village. Muzaffar Ali, allegedly a Rohingya, living in the village of Shravasti district of UP. The girl was brutally killed and raped by Muzaffar Ali alias Shil Kumar. No media reported this heinous crime." The tweet has received over 3 lakh views and has been retweeted over 4,000 times. Under this tweet, he added another tweet that carried an image of the person who is apparently the accused. (Archive)
Neo Politico also published a report the same day where they claimed in the first paragraph that the accused was identified as Muzaffar Ali who was living in the village under the name Sheel Kumar. Further, in the fifth paragraph, the report mentions that the accused was in the village for two decades with a Hindu identity despite being Muslim. The report does not cite any source for these claims. (Archive)
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After Neo Politico published their report, several other Right Wing propaganda Twitter accounts such as ShriKant Tripathi (@AkkhaPandit), हम लोग We The People (@ajaychauhan41), HinduPost (@hindupost) and others like @EkamTamilnadu (according to the Twitter bio, he is the founder member and Tamil Nadu state convenor of Ekam Sanatan Bharat Dal) shared the same image with similar claims. (Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Hindu Post also re-published Neo Politico's Hindi report on their website.
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Fact Check
Since Neo Politico's report mentioned that the accused had been arrested, we checked for updates from Shravasti Police on their official Twitter handle. We came across a tweet made on June 4 in Hindi which said that within 12 hours, Gilaula police arrested the accused who kidnapped and killed the girl. The rope, clothes and motorcycle used in the act had been recovered.
The tweet also carried a video clip from a press conference conducted by Shravasti SP Prachi Singh. In it, the SP says that the incident happened in Rampur Painda village under Gilaula police station area. She also mentions that the name of the accused is Sheel Kumar, son of Rampheran, and that the case was initially registered under IPC Section 363 (Punishment for Kidnapping). There is no mention of the accused faking his religious identity.
We also came across another tweet by Shravasti Police from the same day announcing the arrest. The tweet included an official notice which had the same details as mentioned by the SP.
It says that on June 3, Rammohan Pathak, father of the victim, filed a complaint after his daughter had not returned from the accused Sheel Kumar's place. Apparently, Sheel Kumar called the girl on the pretext of some work. Police immediately filed a case against Sheel Kumar under IPC Section 363. On June 4, the accused was arrested and police could locate the victim's body using the information they got out of Sheel Kumar during interrogation. The police further added Sections 376A, 302, 201 and 5(M)/6 POCSO Act to the case.
Alt News reached out to Gilaula police station to further verify the viral claims. SHO Akhilesh Pandey said, "The accused's name is Sheel Kumar and he is 24. He is a Hindu Brahmin and his father's name is Rampheran." He further denied the claims that were raised by Shubham Sharma and other social media users that the accused was originally a Rohingya Muslim and that his real name was Muzaffar Ali.
Therefore, the claims that the accused in this case had faked his religious identity and that his real name was Muzaffar Ali are false. The accused, Sheel Kumar, has been arrested in relation to the case of kidnapping, rape and murder of a minor girl from Rampur Painda village in Shravasti district, and he is a Hindu.
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Hello, my name is Ankit Sahu. I'm a 25 year old self-employed Pirate from the Chhindwara.