Hyderabad: A collage of two images is circulating on social media with the claim that it shows a 10-year-old boy who was assaulted by a pastor in Chhattisgarh. The posts claimed the pastor assaulted the boy for being a Dalit, saying that ‘Dalits cannot enter church’.
The collage includes a picture of a church in question and of a boy lying in a woman’s lap.
The collage was shared on Facebook with the caption, “Atrocity in Chhattisgarh: Pastor beats up a 10-year-old boy, saying, ‘You are a Dalit, you should not come to church.’ The boy’s condition is critical.” (Translated from Telugu) (Archive)
Posts making similar claims can be seen here and here. (Archive 1, Archive 2)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The images are from 2021. The boy in the collage was attacked by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activist in West Bengal.
We searched and found no reports regarding an incident where a 10-year-old boy was assaulted by a pastor in Chhattisgarh for being a Dalit who entered a church.
We used a reverse image search and found a report by The Telegraph Online titled, “10-year-old hit by BJP worker for refusal to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in Nadia” published on April 20, 2021. The report used the same image of the boy lying in a woman’s lap with the caption, “A relative takes Mahadev Sharma to hospital after he was thrashed by the BJP worker on Monday.” (Archive)
According to the report, 10-year-old Mahadev Sharma was beaten up by Mahadeb Pramanik on April 19, 2021, in Phulia town, Nadia district of West Bengal.
The Telegraph Online stated that Mahadeb Pramanik was a BJP activist and his wife, Mithu Pramanik, was the local chief of the BJP’s women’s wing. “The police have said the boy is the son of a carpenter who is a known Trinamool Congress supporter,” stated the report.
The report also stated that the 10-year-old and the witnesses present at the time of the incident said that the boy was asked to chant “Jai Shree Ram” by the assailant.
Similar reports have been published by Jansatta, News18 Kannada, Newscap.in and Maktoob Media. From these reports, we confirmed that the viral image shows a boy who was assaulted by a BJP activist in West Bengal in 2021. (Archive 1 , Archive 2, Archive 3 and Archive 4)
Similarly, we traced the image of the church in the claim to the website of Christa Prabhalaya Epiphany Church. The comparison between the two images can be found below. (Archive)
Speaking to NewsMeter, Joseph Naveen Kumar, the parish priest of Christa Prabhalaya Epiphany Church, confirmed that the picture in the viral post is of their church altar. He also stated that the image was taken five years ago.
According to the website, the church is in Jayanagar, Bengaluru in Karnataka.
Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the viral claim is false.