Lighthouse Journalism came across a video being widely shared on social media platforms claiming to show DMK workers beating a man named Renkarajan Narasimhan, who filed a case against the government for alleged irregularities in Hindu temples. It was claimed that the video was taken in the court premises in Trichy.
During the investigation, we found that the video was from 2022 and from Telangana. The viral claim is misleading.
Claim:
X user Mahavir Jain shared the viral video with a misleading claim on his profile.
Other users are also sharing the video with similar claims.
Investigation:
We initiated the investigation by conducting a reverse image search on the keyframes extracted from the video.
We found one screenshot uploaded in an article on sakshipost.com.
The article said: Hyderabad city police filed a case against the Dalit leader and ‘Bharata Nasthika Samajam’ President Bairi Naresh for allegedly making ‘insulting’ remarks against Lord Ayyappa Swamy at a public meeting two days ago. Naresh was booked under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The article was uploaded in December 2022.
We found more reports about the same.
We also found the video uploaded on the YouTube channel, hmtv Telugu News.
The description said: Ayyappa Devotees attacked Bhairi Naresh for His Controversial Comments
Bhairi Naresh was later arrested.
However, the person who was attacked was Balraj, a person mistaken to be from Naresh’s group. As mentioned in the reports, during a protest, Balraj was attacked by someone who recognized him as belonging to a different group. Police intervened, rescued him, and took him to the station. Balraj claims he was not involved with that group and was merely present at the protest while the Swamis were demonstrating.
The report mentioned that the incident happened in Kosgi town of Telangana.
Conclusion: Old, unrelated video from Telangana shared as recent with claims of DMK workers beating a man who filed a case against the government for irregularities in Hindu temples. The viral claim is misleading.
