YouTuber Karolina Goswami and her husband Anurag Goswami have alleged that the supporters of pro-AAP YouTuber Dhruv Rathee attacked them in Germany and France after she fact-checked Rathee. In a video posted on their YouTube Channel India in Details, they said that Dhruv Rathee’s fans attacked them in Berlin and Paris, vandalised their car, and took away some devices.
Anurag said that the first incident took place in Berlin when they had gone to meet the father of baby Ariha, who was taken away by the German authorities. After meeting Bhavesh Shah, they went out to get something to eat, where they met one of their subscribers. After that, they went to Brandebug Gate area where Karolina had to shoot a video. Their kids Bhevin and Milan were also with them.
Trouble began when Karolina was shooting the video, as supporters of Dhruv Rathee appeared and started shouting threats to them. ‘Dhruv Ratheew will destroy you, we will destroy you’, they allegedly screamed at Karolina Goswami. As their kids were with them, the couple decided not to confront the fans of Dhruv Rathee and drove away from the place.
They were again faced by Drhuv Rathee fans in Paris after some days, where their car was broken. They shared video of the car with broken windows, which was near the Eifel Tower. When Anurag approached the car, the attackers started abusing Karolina by saying, “your ‘b***h makes videos on Dhruv Rathee”. Anurag Goswami said that he wanted to confront them, but they walked away.
He added that all the valuable items kept in the car were there, except a microphone with built in storage, which means they stole the data along with the mic.
The Goswamis have filed a case against the attackers with the police. Anurag said that while the faced language barrier initially, they were able to register a case.
Anurag Goswami said that a few days ago in Belgium, after visiting the European Parliament, Karolina released an ‘International list of shame’ and Dhruv Rathee’s name was on the list. And now his supporters are attacking them and their family.
He further said, “Dhruv Rathee, I want to say this to you. My wife Karolina exposed your fake content by fact checking your video to protect viewers from your lies. Does she deserve this? Do we deserve this? Dhruv Rathee, why? Talk to me directly. A man to man talk, I am ready for that.”
Anurag Goswami added, “Dhruv Rathee, you’re bringing shame to our nation. This just shows how hollow your so-called principles are and how dangerous it can be to fact check your videos,” He further asked, “Will the Indian YouTube Community watch this silently,” noting that many of them refer to Karolina as sister, did, aka etc.
“A citizen of the European Union, a woman, is attacked by radicalized supporters of an Indian born propagandist who has published fake content, and I want to make this clear these are serious crimes,” he added.
The confrontation between the YouTubers started when Karolina Goswami posted a video in June 2021, where she fact checked Dhruv Rathee’s claims on World Happiness Index. She had shown how the claims made by Rathee regarding the methodology of the survey were incorrect. She then went on to post two more videos fact-checking Dhruv’s claims in detail.
Karolina subsequently posted multiple videos challenging him to directly confront her instead of letting his ‘radicalised supporters’ to target her. She has been asking him to apologise to the viewers for his fake videos, saying that otherwise, she will fact-check more of his videos. She had alleged that Dhruv Rathee is politically motivated, and he is spreading politically charged, fabricated, invalid and fake content while presenting himself as an ‘educator’.
This is not the first time radicalised fans of Dhruv Rathee have attacked Karolina Goswami. In June 2021, after she had fact-checked Rathee, she revealed in a video that Rathee and his fans were attacking and abusing her. She had accused Dhruv of mentally harassing and abusing her for fact-checking his videos.
It is notable that in her videos, Karolina Goswami explained how Rathee misled his viewers by misconstruing the methodology of the World Happiness Report to peddle blatant lies against India. Listing out each lie of Rathee in the video, Karolina Goswami had explained how the pro-AAP blogger had erred in understanding the ranking methodology of the report. In his video, Rathee had displayed a poor understanding of the methodology of rankings and went on to propagate misinformation to his viewers. Based on the flawed understanding, Rathee had gone on to claim that Pakistan was much happier than India.
