Viral Justice Killed An Innocent Indian Man – OpEd

(UCA News) -- On a crowded bus last month in the Indian state of Kerala, a woman pulled out her phone and started recording. There was visible space between her and a man identified as Deepak U., who was just trying to get home. She moved closer. Then she accused him of touching her inappropriately. Within hours, the video was everywhere. Within days, Deepak was dead.

He did not die from violence. He died from shame — the kind that arrives in thousands of hateful messages from strangers who watched a thirty-second clip and decided they knew everything.

His family begged people to look closer at the footage to see his arm held against his body and his movement away from her at the end. Nobody listened. The mob had spoken. Deepak hanged himself, and his mother collapsed at his funeral, asking a question nobody could answer: “Who will give me back my son?”

That question should haunt every person who shared that video. It should especially haunt the churches.

Across Asia, where Christianity touches millions of lives and pastors hold genuine moral authority, the Church has been strangely silent as social media turns into an execution ground. We preach about loving our neighbors, about not bearing false witness, and about the danger of quick judgment. Then our congregations go home, pick up their phones, and become the very mobs Christ warned against — the ones ready to cast the first stone without knowing the full story.

This is not just about one tragic case. Asia has the world’s highest social media engagement rates, and we are weaponizing that connectivity faster than our moral frameworks can keep up.

The technology supercharges something ancient: our eagerness to believe the worst about people, especially when accusations involve gender and power. When a woman accuses a man of harassment, the immediate social instinct is to believe her completely and condemn him instantly. This instinct comes from a good place. Women have been silenced for too long, their genuine suffering ignored or minimized. The correction was necessary.

But we have overcorrected into territory where verification no longer matters, where a claim alone becomes proof, and where the accused has no path to defend themselves before the verdict arrives. And when that happens, innocent people die.

False accusations do not just destroy the falsely accused — they make it harder for real victims to be believed. Every fabricated claim feeds the skepticism that genuine survivors must overcome.

Here is the uncomfortable truth, Asian churches need to speak aloud: Acknowledging this reality does not betray women — it protects everyone. Justice that refuses to examine evidence is not justice. It is just mob violence with a righteous mask.

Churches should be the first institutions pushing back. We follow someone who was himself the victim of false accusations, who was condemned by a mob whipped into a frenzy, and who died because lies spread faster than truth. The parallels are exact. Yet where are the sermons about digital discernment? Where are the church programs teaching young people that destroying someone’s reputation online is a form of violence? Where are the church ministers willing to say from the pulpit that hitting share on an unverified accusation might make you complicit in someone’s death?

The silence is damning because churches across Asia actually have the power to change this. Sunday services reach millions. Youth groups shape the next generation’s values. Christian schools educate the people who will design tomorrow’s technology and policy. If churches made digital ethics a priority — teaching that the same commandments apply online, that bearing false witness through a screen is still a sin, and that loving your neighbor means not participating in their destruction — it could shift entire cultures.

It means sometimes defending people the mob has already convicted. It means telling congregations that their outrage might be wrong, that the viral video might be misleading, and that presuming innocence is not the same as dismissing victims. It means standing with families like Deepak’s when everyone else has moved on to the next scandal.

This is not separate from the Church’s mission. It is central to it. Digital witness is inseparable from Christian witness. A person who worships on Sunday but participates in online character assassination on Monday has not understood the gospel. The mission includes forming people whose entire lives — including their social media presence — reflect Christ’s values. That means integrating digital ethics into every level of Church life, from children’s programs teaching kids that online cruelty has real consequences to adult discipleship addressing how Christians engage with controversial content.

Churches must become sanctuaries of truth in an age of viral lies. This is prophetic work. It means creating congregations courageous enough to pause before sharing, wise enough to question narratives that confirm their biases, and humble enough to admit when they have participated in injustice. It means preaching that asks uncomfortable questions: Have you ever shared something that destroyed someone’s reputation? Have you considered that your righteous anger might be based on incomplete information?

It also means practicing restorative justice for the digitally destroyed. Just as early Christians cared for plague victims that others abandoned, today’s Church should minister to those canceled by the mob — offering legal support, emotional counseling, spiritual guidance, and community when the world has turned away. Not excusing genuine wrongdoing, but ensuring that accusation does not equal execution, that even the guilty deserve proportionate consequences, and that the innocent receive fierce advocacy.

When Jesus interrupted a stoning, he did not stay neutral. He did not say both sides have valid points. He stopped an execution based on accusation without evidence. That is the model.

Deepak’s mother is still asking her question. Who will give back her son? The answer is nobody. He is gone because a woman wanted views and thousands of strangers wanted to feel righteous. That injustice cannot be undone. But the next one could be prevented if churches accept this as mission-critical work — not a distraction from spreading the gospel but an essential expression of it.

If the Church will not stand for truth, dignity, and justice in the digital age, what exactly is it standing for?

• The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.