Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
Claim
A man who went to pick up his daughter from Lady Doak college in Madurai was thrashed by ruffians for objecting to harassment of the girls in the College.
The archived version of the tweet can be seen here.
Fact check/Verification
We began by looking up reports on the incident and found that 9 men were arrested for harassing students outside Lady Doak College in Madurai on the occasion of Thevar Jayanti on October 30, the birth anniversary of Pasumpon Muthuramalingam Thevar, a freedom fighter, politician, spiritual leader and the patriarch of the Thevar community.
However, a careful analysis of the video showed that the gate of the college and the compound wall were different in the first sequence that showed a man being thrashed. The earlier sequence carried the name of the college ‘Lady Doak College’ branded on the gate. The compound wall did not match the compound wall of the Lady Doak College either. We further observed that on the opposite the gate of the college, there appears to be an elevated road. We then looked up Lady Doak College on Google Maps and found that the location seen in the second half of the video is not from Lady Doak College.
We then looked up the keywords ‘Madurai College’ on Twitter which threw up several posts by users sharing the same video. But few of the posts clarified that the two incidents were separate and not from the same college.
We found a tweet by Venkatesh RS, a journalist with Junior Vikatan, who wrote in Tamil that the second set of visuals seen in the video showed a man, who was there to pick uphis daughter, was being thrashed outside Meenakshi College in the city.
On further research we found more reports that revealed that the incident took place on November 3rd and not October 30. Furthermore, the incident did not have any connection to any woman student being harassed.
A report on the Free Press Journal quotes Madurai police as saying that the men were part of a funeral procession that was passing in front of the college at around 3:30pm, when students were exiting the college.
A translation of a Dinakaran report reads, “some youths, in an inebriated state, were driving two-wheelers at a high speed, honking and shouting. Seeing the speeding vehicles, people on the road were panic. Just at that time, the students who were coming out of the college after classes, were also scared. Seeing this, a man who was there to pick up his daughter asked, “Why are you going like this…? Making so much noise, why can’t you go quietly…” Enraged by this, the gang immediately stopped their vehicle and attacked the father with the helmet.”
Another report on Asianet Tamil reads (translation), “A father, who had come to pick up his college-going daughter, reprimanded youths who brought knives on a two-wheeler. Due to this, the enraged mob stopped the two-wheelers and threw the helmet in front of the daughter.”
Kamadhenu, a publication by The Hindu group also relayed the same information.
We further looked up Meenakshi College on Google maps, we also found that the compound wall and the gate matched the one seen in the viral video.
Newschecker attempted to contact Madurai police on the story. The article will be updated with a response from Madurai police when we receive it.
We can conclude that the incident of the man being thrashed outside a college was from Meenakshi college of arts and science and occurred on November 3rd and is unrelated to the harassment of women at Lady Doak College that occurred earlier on October 30. The man was thrashed for reprimanding drunk youth for making noise, and not for harassment. The video is a compilation of both instances.
Result: Missing Context
Sources
Report published by Asianet Tamil on November 5, 2022
Report published by Kamadhenu on November 5, 2022
Report published by Dhinakaran on November 5, 2022
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Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
