Man in blue T-shirt in video clip: Kya naam hai tera?

With a trace of a smile, little boy gives a Muslim name.

Man in T-shirt: Baap ka naam?

Boy gives a Muslim name

Man in T-shirt: Mandir mein kya kar raha hai?

Unsuspecting boy happily replies: Mandir mein paani peene aaye the.

Man in T-shirt rains blows and expletives on the stunned boy who falls to the ground. The assailant then kicks him repeatedly.

A caretaker of a temple managed by an erstwhile engineer whose acolytes include a “Hindutva” rabble-rouser allegedly slapped and kicked the boy for drinking water at the shrine, while his fellow caretaker purportedly filmed the assault.

Both caretakers, identified by the police as Shringi Nandan Yadav and Swami, were arrested on Friday evening for the atrocity earlier in the day at the popular Dasna Devi Mandir in Dasna, Uttar Pradesh, 50km east of Delhi.

In the video posted on a now deleted Instagram handle @hinduektasanghh, the man in the blue T-shirt asks the boy —who police say is aged between 12 and 14 — his name and that of his father.

Before that, a voice says: “Badhiya se dono ka chehra aana chahiye (Both the faces should appear clearly).”

The child gives the names, both Muslim names. The questioner (identified as Yadav) then asks why the boy has come to the temple.

When the boy replies he came to drink water, the man begins to slap him, then twists his arm and pushes him to the ground. He stamps on the child’s face and upper thigh repeatedly as the boy tries to block kicks to his groin with his palm.

The man says, as he hits the boy: “(Expletive), paani peene aaya... (another expletive).”

As he is beaten, the boy is heard saying again: “I came to drink water, uncle.”

Drinking water is offered freely at most places of worship in these parts of north India, irrespective of the faith of the recipient.

While many social media users condemned the assault and the bigotry, many others expressed support for the accused and reviled the critics.

The temple’s mahant, Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, is a Moscow-educated engineer who faces a police case for allegedly saying last year that India “will be clean of Islam”.

In response to questions from The Telegraph, Narsinghanand said on Saturday night: “The drinking water tap is outside the temple, and no one needs to enter inside to drink water. We have a sign outside that says the entry of Muslims is prohibited…. This boy entered the temple and spat on the idol and urinated on our wall. That is why our people caught him.”

But in the clip that was uploaded, the assailant makes none of these charges. In fact, from the manner of the interrogation, it is clear that the attacker wanted to establish the boy’s religion first before beating him up. No mention is made of any desecration which, even if it took place, does not empower anyone to assault another person.

The followers of Narsinghanand are said to impart arms training to Hindu youth, and his devotees include Ragini Tiwari who had released inflammatory videos during last year’s communal violence in Delhi.

“Two people have been arrested. One who was making the video (identified as Swami) and one who assaulted (the boy). They are in judicial custody,” Ghaziabad superintendent of police (rural areas) Iraj Raja told this newspaper. “Charges of criminal assault, other sections (of the Indian Penal Code) as well as the Information Technology Act, as the video was circulated online, have been invoked.”

Raja said the incident took place on Friday afternoon and confirmed the accused were “caretakers of the temple”. He said Yadav lived near the temple.

“The boy and his family have not approached the police. They are untraceable,” he added.

Fact-checking website AltNews’s co-founder, Mohammed Zubair, tweeted screenshots of the deleted Instagram page that celebrated the assault for making “a terrorist Muslim impotent”.

Another post from the @hinduektasanghh sought funds for Yadav to fight the case.

Zubair tweeted: “A look at his (Yadav’s) Facebook profile shows he is inspired by hate speeches of Dasna Mandir Mahant Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati.”

He shared a video of Yadav where Narsinghanand is seen in the background, as well as videos showing inflammatory speeches by the mahant.

Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh tweeted: “A Muslim boy who drank water in the temple was beaten badly. Which Ramayana or knowledge of the Geeta or Vedas is this? Which Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam?”

“Vasudhaiva kutumbakam” is an old Sanskrit saying meaning “the whole world is kin”.

Lawyer and activist Dushyant tweeted: “Looked hard for Hindu names under this thread condemning the incident. Found a few. A few.”

He added: “The child is shocked. He happily shares he went to drink water. He can’t believe he is being beaten for just drinking water. Haven’t his parents told him he is a Muslim living in India? How dare he think that a house of ‘god’ will permit everyone to drink water.”

Twitter user Intekhab Alam posted: “During school days used to drink cold water from nearby Mandir and sometimes Parsad too In new India you get this.”

He immediately received a reply from a handle named “The Good Brigadier” about an alleged child rape by a Muslim in Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh.

The support for the Dasna atrocity and the bid to raise funds for the accused resemble the aftermath of the lynching of a Malda native, Afrazul Khan, in Udaipur in 2017.

Shambhulal Regar, who is still awaiting trial, is accused of hacking Khan to death and burning his body on camera as retaliation for alleged “love jihad”. Regar later uploaded videos from inside the Jodhpur central jail that showed him delivering inflammatory speeches.

Regar’s wife received several lakhs in donations, and Regar’s supporters stormed an Udaipur court and hoisted a saffron flag on it to protest his arrest. Regar has allegedly confessed to police that the killing resulted from a case of mistaken identity.