Varanasi:
A minister in the Uttar Pradesh government, Surendra Patel, has been caught on camera slapping a young man.
The minister, however, insists that the boy he is seen striking is his nephew, and that he was "patting" him during an official function at his home.
The local police told the Press Trust of India (PTI) that the event had been organised to distribute 10,000 free blankets to the poor at Mr Patel's Varanasi home yesterday.
He said huge crowds gathered, causing a security problem, and that in the chaos, he was trying to catch his nephew's attention to quickly organise more blankets.
The minister told PTI that "somehow a wrong message was sent and unprecedented crowd reached which also became unmanageable."