In a disturbing incident from Uttar Pradesh, a man was publically thrashed by a group of people in an apparent instance of moral policing when he was bathing with his wife in the Saryu river in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. As seen in the viral videos of the incident, the couple was harassed and dragged out of the river, and the man beaten after he was spotted kissing his wife in the river.
Police have begun an investigation after a purported video of the incident went viral.
While the exact date of the incident was yet to be ascertained, locals claim the incident occurred on Tuesday at the Ram ki Paudi ghat. However, police have not received any official complaints yet but police are on the lookout for the miscreants. The incident also led to outrage on social media.
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This is not the first time that Indians have resorted to moral policing of couples in public spaces in ways that often amount to harassment and abuse. In 2018, a couple were infamously beaten on the Kolkata metro after co-passengers got offended with their "hugging". The incident triggered protests across Kolkata with youth taking to streets against the incident by offering free hugs outside metro stations.
In 2015, a Kerala youth was lynched by a mob after he was found inside a woman's house in Thrissur. In Karnataka, seven people were arrested in December 2021 over incidents of moral policing. In once incident, two college students belonging to different faiths were harassed on a bus and forced to get off by a mob who claimed the boy was misbehaving with the girl in Mangalore. In another incident, a boy was attacked after he was spotted by there men sitting by a lake in the Udupi district. In this case too, the couple belonged to different faiths.
