Until the last two days, we had made heroines out of two women who beat up men in a bus for allegedly molesting them. They were even going to get felicitated on Republic Day by Haryana’s CM. But the Haryana government has put the award they were getting on hold because of suspicion about the who, what and how of the incident.

First, you need to check out this video that’s doing the rounds on social media.

If you think this is an attempt to use emotion to sway judgement, think again. The people shown here are willing to go on TV and risk their reputation. Secondly, it was uploaded by Deepika Bhardwaj, someone who has dedicated her life to false dowry allegations in India.

Then, you need to think about these questions.

1. Are they on a male beating spree?

A total of seven men might have been beaten up in incidents this year by our “bravehearts”; six of them from the same college! A bit odd – do they never try to contact the police? Perhaps, even make a video of just the harassment to show us what they’re dealing with, instead of shooting girl-power straight away?

2. How come there's a camera person always recording them?

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It doesn’t make a difference whether you’re a guy or a girl. If you’re beating up someone in retaliation, the last thing you’ll expect is to have your friend whip out a camera. For that matter, where is the camera person this time? Surely their first-person testimony has value? According to the girls, there was a pregnant woman who shot the video. No idea where this person is, though!

3. Why haven't we heard the guy’s side of the story before making up our minds?

Is he not a human being worthy of being listened to? Our Constitution believes in 'innocent until proven guilty', but we’ve made him a molester.

4. The bigger question - are we willing to agree with every woman instantly if she cries rape or harassment?

Remember the last time the media made an idol out of a woman who was supposedly wronged by patriarchy? You might; the Nisha Sharma dowry case was even published in NCERT books. And that turned out false – Nisha had lied, and we had believed it. This is no different from a mob violence mentality – if everyone says the guy is wrong, he is surely wrong, eh?

5. How come the recording starts only at the point of the men getting beat up?



But when a news channel asked the women how come the filming starts at the exact moment when the violence starts, and doesn’t show what led to the fight, they could only say that anyone could have filmed it.