Video Of Indian Men Giving Alcohol To 4-Year-Old Boy Goes Viral

A video showing a 4-year-old Indian boy being forcibly given alcohol by a group of six men has gone viral. Following the incident, which took place in Tiruvannamalai district in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu on June 30, police have arrested two men and launched a search warrant for four others, including the child’s maternal uncle, local media reported Tuesday.

The video, which is one minute and 35 seconds long, went viral on WhatsApp and social media websites like Facebook. The video shows a group of young men asking the boy to eat nuts from a plastic bag and forcing him to drink alcohol from a plastic cup even after he waves his hand to signal that he does not want to drink more. The boy is later seen coughing and drinking water while the men laugh and ask him to finish the cup.

“We formed three special teams to trace the youth,” a police official said, the New Indian Express, a local newspaper reported.

Police have registered a case against the six men under section 25 (penalty for giving intoxicating liquor or narcotic drug or psychotropic substance to juvenile or child) of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000, according to the report.

“This is a new kind of perversity born out of Tamil Nadu's liquor addiction,” Thamizharuvi Manian, a local politician and an anti-liquor activist, told the Telegraph.