Fact Check: Name of third accused in Lucknow’s sexual assault case being excluded to give communal spin

Hyderabad: Several social media users have shared news about three persons being arrested for raping an officer’s daughter in Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow. However, by naming only two of the three accused, many are trying to mark the heinous crime with a communal colour.

An X premium user making the claim wrote, “Police exposed the case of gangrape of an officer’s daughter in the capital Lucknow and three criminals have been arrested. Aslam, Suhail and another associate gang-raped the girl on the pretext of charging her mobile. The girl is undergoing psychiatric treatment at KGMU. (Translated from Hindi)”

Anurag Chaddha, chief editor of News1 India, posted the news on X without naming the third accused.

Sudarshan UP and other X handles have also posted the news without naming the third accused. They have also shared the video of the Lucknow police’s press conference on the incident.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the name of the third accused is Satyam Mishra and there is no communal angle.

We checked the video of the police press conference. In the video, the police identified the three accused as Satyam Mishra, Aslam and Suhail, as per the complaint filed by the victim on December 10.

The police official also mentioned that the incident took place around King George’s Medical University (KGMU) in a car, which has been confiscated, and three accused were also arrested within 12 hours.

Taking this cue, we ran a relevant keyword search and found the same police statement in a video report published by UP Tak on December 11. The channel said that as per the police, the victim, a psychiatric patient, used to visit Lucknow’s KGMU hospital for treatment.

During her visits, she made acquaintance with Satyam Mishra, who runs a tea stall in front of the hospital. On December 5, during a hospital visit, Satyam helped the victim charge her phone by plugging it into an ambulance. However, the ambulance left with the phone. Satyam, along with Aslam and Suhail, took the girl in a car to collect the mobile phone, got her intoxicated and sexually assaulted her in the car.

We also came across a News 18 report from December 12 titled ‘Lucknow: Government Official’s Daughter Gang-raped in Moving Car; Tea Vendor, Two Others Nabbed.’

It said that the incident happened after the woman took the help of a tea vendor, Satyam Mishra, whose stall she used to often visit, to charge her mobile phone.

It mentioned that an FIR was registered at Wazirganj police station under sections 376(d) (gang rape), 342 (wrongful confinement), 328 (administering drug with intent to cause hurt), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the three accused after the woman’s complaint on December 10. It also mentioned that the other two accused were identified as Suhail and Mohd. Aslam.

Speaking to NewsMeter, Manoj Kumar Mishra, inspector at Wazirganj police station in Lucknow denied the communal angle. He confirmed that the three accused were equalled involved and identified them as Satyam Mishra, Suhail and Aslam.

The incident has no communal angle and social media users are writing about the incident without naming Satyam Mishra to give it a communal spin. Hence, we conclude that the posts not naming the third accused are intentionally misleading