Fact Check: Public assault of woman lawyer in Karnataka over land dispute shared with false spin
India Today
A video of a public assault on a woman went viral on social media, with the claim that she took bribes from another party and helped them get him arrested. India Today's Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be misleading.
Recently, a video of a public assault on a woman went viral on social media. It showed a man attacking the woman in full public view, kicking and slapping her repeatedly.
Those sharing it claimed that the woman was a lawyer and the attacker was her former client. One such post read, “2022 Vinayak Nagar, Bagalkot, Karnataka. Story: She is a lawyer who cheated her client and sent him to jail in a false case for which she took bribes from the opposition party. So, he beat this lawyer up. Someone, please confirm the date.”
The India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found that while the woman was a lawyer, she was attacked in Karnataka's Bagalkote by her neighbour over a property dispute, not a former client.
We first searched on Google for recent reports on public assaults on women in Karnataka. A lawyer was reportedly attacked in the Bagalkote district of Karnataka over a property dispute. We found screenshots of the viral video in many of these reports. NDTV said the attack happened in Bagalkot's Vinayak Nagar.
While the news reports noted that the assault was triggered by a property dispute, we found none that supported the claim that the man was her former client. We also found no mention of her falsely implicating him in a case after taking bribes. Per the reports, the accused was Mahantesh Cholachagudda, the woman's neighbour.
We reached out to Lokesh Bharamappa Jagalasar, the superintendent of police, Bagalkote district, to confirm the details. "The lady who was assaulted and the accused are neighbours. The incident happened in front of his shop. The altercation happened when the woman asked why he wasn't supporting her in a land dispute with some other party. The man has now been arrested," he told India Today.
When contacted, the victim’s family also refuted the claim. “The man was not her client but our neighbour. He is a close friend of the other party with whom we have a land dispute case in court. On May 13, when she was on her way to the post office with her husband, the accused started abusing them. When he was asked not to insult them in public, the man started beating her. He had attacked our family earlier too,” the brother of the woman told India Today.
