A report is going viral on social media that three Muslim boys were allegedly thrashed by six unidentified men for refusing chant "Jai Shri Ram" in Gujarat's Godhra town on Friday.

A Twitter user Md. Asif Khan tweeted, "3 Muslim boys were attacked in Godhra, Gujarat. They were asked to chant Jai Sri Ram, they got seriously injured in this attack, they are in civil hospital but police refusing to file FIR".

An Australian writer CJ Werleman retweeted it and wrote, "Jai Sri Ram" has become a Hindutva war cry, and it's typically the last thing a Muslim hears before he or she is murdered".

The tweet has received more than 1,470 likes and 1,250 retweets at the time of writing this article.

You can see the video of the incident here:

The news was covered by many prominent media websites like newsclick and Satya Hindi. However, following a legal notice, Co-founder of Satya Hindi Ashutosh issued a clarification while taking down the article from their website.

SatyaHindi believes in ethical journalism.This news was widely reported in papers/news portals. We erred in not appropriately reporting police version. Its human error. SatyaHindi regrets this error and has withdrawn the story.

Not forced to chant Jai Shri Ram: Police

An FIR was registered at 3 AM based on the statements of the three Muslim boys. Since Godhra is a communally sensitive place, a communal narrative is being built around this incident.

According to Siddique Bagat, the complainant claimed that six unidentified men on two motorcycles stopped his son Samir and his friends Salaman Gheeteli and Sohail Bhagat when the trio was returning home on the motorbike on Thursday night. The accused asked them to chant "Jai Shri Ram". When the boys refused, they started thrashing them. One of them hit Samir with a bicycle chain on the forehead while another man hit Salman on the head with a blunt object.

Significantly, after the preliminary inquiry, in this case, the police have dismissed the charges of beating because of not speaking Jai Shri Ram. Police are calling it a case of a bike race and overtaking

ANI tweeted a post with a clarification "Godhra: Three Muslim youth allege that they were thrashed by 6 people yesterday after they refused to chant 'Jai Shri Ram'. Police says, "case has been registered. During the probe, it has been found that the incident was due to vehicle overtaking. There's no other issue." 

Conclusion, The claim is false that Three Muslim youth were thrashed by 6 people after they refused to chant 'Jai Shri Ram'. During the probe, it has been found that the incident happened due to vehicle overtaking. There's no other issue."

There have been some incidents where members of the minority community have been cornered and forced to say "Jai Shri Ram", however, multiple fake cases have only amplified the perception that Jai Shri Ram slogan has become a war-cry. 

Last week we highlighted eight such cases. Out of those, three cases (Aurangabad, Bhagpat, and Hyderabad) where victims had fabricated the story, two cases (Aurangabad and Rohini) where eye-witnesses refuted the allegation, two cases(Unnao and Gurugram) where no conclusive evidence is available to support victim's claim and police's version differs from the victim's account, one case where media gave communal spin (Kanpur Auto-driver's case) and one case in which perpetrator was a Muslim himself. You can read our detailed report on this here:

Jai Shri Ram slogan has become a war-cry: fake cases have amplified the perception of religious intolerance