Fact Check: Video of domestic violence in Indore falsely passed off as BJP worker assaulting his wife

Hyderabad: Two videos showing a man beating a woman with a brick and the woman bleeding while people shout at the man for attacking the woman, have gone viral.

Those sharing the videos claim they show a BJP worker assaulting his wife after she refused to let him attend prime minister Narendra Modi’s public event.

“A BJP worker is beating his wife badly with bricks because she refused to let him attend Modi’s event. Remove BJP to save the country, (sic)” wrote the X user while sharing the videos. Click here to view the archived version.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is misleading. The man in the video is married to two women, and the incident concerns a dispute between him and his first wife.

Upon a reverse image search, we found the video on X posted on February 28. As per the hashtags used in the caption, the video is from Indore, Madhya Pradesh.

With this cue, we ran a keyword search and came across a report by The Times of India published on February 29, 2024. According to the report, the incident happened on February 25 in the Banganga area of Indore and the video went viral on February 28. The viral video shows the accused, Jitendra Parmar, bludgeoning his first wife, Pooja Parmar, with a brick. Pooja Parmar lives in Narvar, Banganga, with her two children.

According to the report, Jitendra married for the second time, leading to a strained relationship with his first wife. It quoted Additional DCP Ram Sanehi Mishra saying, “On Sunday, she (Pooja) was ill and went to sleep. Both the children were playing. Jitendra entered the house with his second wife Gayatri, mother Basanti Bai and sister Payal and started attacking her.”

The police official said that Jitendra picked up the knife and Pooja’s mother-in-law, sister-in-law and Gayatri caught hold of her. After attacking her on the head with the knife, he dragged her by the hair, brought her to the balcony and tried to throw her down. She kept pleading for mercy but the accused picked up a brick and hit her on the head and face multiple times, the report said.

The TOI report also mentioned that Banganga police have registered a case of attempt to murder against accused Jitendra Parmar and his mother, sister and second wife. The police arrested Jitendra Parmar, and the court sent him to jail after he was presented in the court by the police.

The report did not mention that Jitendra Parmar is a BJP worker, and he assaulted his wife because she was stopping him from attending PM’s event.

The Week also reported the incident on February 29, stating the accused, Jitendra Parmar, was cheered on by his mother and second wife as he assaulted his first wife, Pooja Parmar. It also mentioned that the incident was reported in Indore’s Banganga neighbourhood.

News 18 and the Free Press Journal also reported the incident with the same details.