Video of domestic violence shared with communal spin

Trigger warning: The video is about domestic violence and may be disturbing or traumatising to some audiences. Viewers' discretion is advised.

Hyderabad: After the arrest of Aftab Amin Poonawala in Delhi for killing his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar, a section of social media users has raked up the subject of love jihad.

Against this backdrop, a disturbing video that shows a man assaulting a woman in front of a child has gone viral on social media with the claim that it is a case of love jihad.

A Facebook user shared the video and wrote, "This is what happens to Hindus after love jihad. Hindu girl getting beaten up by Muslim husband…" (Translated)

Twitter users also shared the video with the same claim. (Click here and here to see the tweets.)

Fact Check

NewsMeter noticed a text in the video that said the man in the video is Mohammed Mushtaq GK, and he works for an IT company in Bengaluru. Taking this as a cue, we ran a keyword search which led us to a video report published by India Today on 4 October 2022.

The report contains the same video and identifies the victim as Aisha and the abuser as Mohammed Mushtaq GK, her husband. In the report, Aisha speaks about her ordeals and describes her husband as a psychopath who has refused to divorce her even after remarrying another woman and having a child with her.

According to the website Ground Report, the video dates back to 2015. Mohammed Mushtaq GK married Ayesha Banu on 30 March 2009. They had a son on 1 August 2013. Later, differences arose, and they decided to separate.

Further, we confirmed from a Karnataka High Court judgement dated 21 December 2021 that Mushtaq and Aisha belong to the Sunni Muslim community.

Quashing Mushtaq's petition for custody of the child, the court said, "If the wife can stay away from the matrimonial home on the ground of husband's second marriage, it goes without saying that she can normally retain the exclusive custody of her minor child."

The judgement also mentions that the divorce petition of the couple is pending before a Bengaluru family court.

A copy of the judgement can be read here.

It is evident from the findings that the estranged spouses in the viral video belong to the same community. Hence, the claim of love jihad is misleading.