Journalist Tavleen Singh on Tuesday endorsed canards made by a Twitter user who alleged that an 8-year-old Dalit boy was killed by accused belonging to the Thakur clan by pouring acid over him. “Yet another horror story” tweeted Singh while quoting the tweet posted by the aforementioned user.
A Twitter user that goes by handle @ambedkariteIND had posted a tweet alleging that a minor Dalit boy in Uttar Pradesh’s Sosa village was killed by Thakurs. The user further added that Thakurs are continuously pressurising the victim’s family to withdraw the FIR and trying to kill the victim’s family.
“#UttarPradesh In village Sosa, district Mathura, on 22 November, an 8-year-old Dalit child is killed by Thakurs by pouring acid. Killer Thakurs are continuously pressurizing the victim’s family to withdraw the FIR and is trying to kill the victim’s family……#DalitLivesMatter,” the user tweeted along with a picture of a boy with his identity masked.
The claim was widely shared on social media, including by eminent personalities with sizeable followers. Journalist Tavleen Singh was also one of them who lapped up the claim made in the tweet and commented that one more horror story has been reported.
Mathura Police debunks fake news of caste atrocity linked to a dead boy
However, Mathura Police took to Twitter to debunk the fake news that was being bandied around on social media and granted credibility by the likes of Tavleen Singh.
Debunking the claims made in the spurious tweet endorsed by Ms Singh, the official Twitter account of Mathura police cited a postmortem report of the boy to inform that he died because of asphyxia due to drowning and not by acid burns as peddled by fake news peddlers. The police categorically called out the claims of the boy dying because of acid burns are fake and misleading.
— MATHURA POLICE (@mathurapolice) December 21, 2021
The police said a case of missing persons was filed on November 23, 2021, at Magora police station. Then on November 26, 2021, the police recovered the body of the boy from the Agra canal near the Fatah sector and on post-mortem found that the boy died due to drowning.
