Fact Check: Kerala bus incident - Shimjitha Mustafa arrest on tape? No, video shows different woman

Hyderabad: In Kerala, last week, a woman identified as Shimjitha Mustafa posted a video on social media alleging a bus passenger, U Deepak (41), of sexual harassment while travelling. Deepak died by suicide after the video went viral on social media. On January 21, Shimjitha was arrested by the Kozhikode Medical College police under the charges of abetment of suicide.

After her arrest, Shimjitha Mustafa was produced before the court, which remanded her in judicial custody for 14 days on charges of abetment to suicide.

In this context, a video of a woman being arrested is going viral with the claim that it shows Shimjitha Mustafa being taken into custody.

The viral video has two clips playing simultaneously, one on top of the other.

The top clip shows the video that Shimjitha shared on social media of the alleged harassment. The second clip shows a woman getting arrested by police in uniform. She can be seen being put into a van while some people try to stop the police. The clip continues with some shots of the woman at a police station.

Sharing the video on X, a user wrote, “Kerala Government Super” (Translated from Tamil) (Archive)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video does not show Shimjitha Mustafa getting arrested, it is a different woman.

Is the woman getting arrested in the video Shimjitha?

The woman being arrested in the viral clip did not look like Shimjitha Mustafa. The video also shows the presence of uniformed police. Using keyword searches, we found a Times of India report which stated that Shimjitha was arrested by police in plain clothes.

The TOI report stated that Kozhikode Medical College police in plain clothes arrested Shimjitha from a relative’s house on January 21 afternoon. She reportedly had been absconding since January 19, when police registered a case against her for abetment of suicide.

This confirmed that the woman in the clip is not Shimjitha.

Who is the woman in the clip?

Using reverse image searches, we found an extended version of the viral clip uploaded to YouTube by News Keralam on November 24, 2023. The title of the video reads, ‘Aswathi appeared before the Anchal police along with her lawyer’.

According to this video, we found that the name of the woman getting arrested is Aswathi. It is clear that the video clip showing Aswathi getting arrested predates the arrest of Shimjitha.

Who is Aswathi?

The description of the YouTube video reads, "Aswathy, who left her child behind and went with her lover on the day her husband hanged himself, appeared before the Anchal police along with her lawyer. The police prevented her parents from assaulting Aswathy at the police station." (Translated from Malayalam)

According to a Times XP report dated November 25, 2023 (Times XP is part of the Times Group), Aswathy is a native of Kaippally village in the Anchal block of Kerala’s Kollam district. The report stated that she left her two-year-old daughter and eloped with her lover within hours of her husband’s death in Kollam’s Ayur Kuzhiyam area. Her boyfriend, Nitin, a native of Thiruvalla, later appeared at the Anchal police station. Following this, the Anchal police registered a case against Aswathy for abandoning her minor child and leaving with her partner.

The Times XP report also shared a video related to the incident, which included visuals of Aswathy and Nitin near the police station, along with a police official addressing the media. Although the video is blurred, a comparison of screenshots from the viral video and the Times XP footage shows Aswathy wearing the same black-and-white outfit in both clips.

The viral video claiming to show the arrest of Shimjitha Mustafa is false. The person in the viral video is not Shimjitha Mustafa. It shows a woman identified as Aswathi getting arrested in 2023.

Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the viral claim is false.