A video of a woman has been released on social media with a false claim that she is the 19-year old Dalit girl who was allegedly gang-raped in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh and died in Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital on 29th September.
The Hathras case has attracted national media’s attention after UP police personnel cremated the body of the victim early morning on September 30 without permitting her parents to attend the funeral. The police department has, however, declared these claims not true.
The viral video overlaid with a Hindi song is showing a woman walking through a crowded room while men dressed in suits are bowing down to touch her feet while women are giving her roses and showering her with flowers. The caption falsely claims that the video shows the felicitation of the girl after topping her exam.
A Facebook user Sanjay Kumar Rana claimed that the girl in the video was the Hathras victim and wrote in Hindi translated as, “Manisha was a topper in education, check this awesome video of people welcoming her when she topped an exam, she is the same girl who was raped and her tongue was chopped off.”
Minhaz Choudhry, another Facebook user posted the same video but changed the caption later from Manisha to "#Girls who get respect from the public also do not get minimum respect in the eyes of the government nowadays. All girls should learn to live with respect like this."
After proper verification, the video turned out to be that of Nazia Begum, who is a motivational speaker and member of a marketing business 'Safe Shop.'
According to the Safe-Shop website, it is an e-commerce company based out of Hyderabadthatsells fashion, health/beauty, and lifestyle products. Their business model is based on MLM architecture. Nazia was the youngest Diamond member of the company and in the video where men are touching her feet is a ritual of the company.
The video with the same misleading claim was shared on Facebook by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) worker Priyanka Gautam and Congress worker Saddam Khan.
According to the Quint, when they searched "Nazia Begum Safe Shop" on YouTube, they found the same video posted by a user called Arjun Singh on March 5. The caption reads, "GRAND WELCOME DIAMOND LEADER SAFE SHOP MS NAZIA MADAM" Several other videos on Nazia were found on YouTube that proves that she is not the Hathras case victim.
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