A series of fake images and videos are being circulated on WhatsApp and social media in Mangalore and neighboring areas of Karnataka. They were posted on Twitter on May 16 just a day after the Karnataka Assembly Election results were declared. The BJP turned out as the single largest political party in Karnataka, with 104 seats out of the total 222 contested. The images and videos were posted by a man named Mohammed Mohsin, and his profile picture on social media looks like a Congress symbol.
The post reads “BJP and Sanghi cadres attacked church in Mangalore to install bhagwa and BJP flags and celebrate the victory of BJP majority police arrested all of them.” The person is clearly not aware that BJP did not gained a majority. When the video was verified it came out to be a decade old shoot of TV9, which shows the location of Saint Sebastian church in Permannur, Mangaluru.
When asked about any such incident to the Public Relations Officer of the Mangalore Diocese, the individual said, “No attacks on any church in Mangalore have taken place till Thursday morning. The video going around on social media is very old, nearly ten years old. This is incorrect information.”
Mangalore is a city in Dakshina Kannada district of coastal Karnataka, the district has a sizable minority population with 24 percent of Muslims and 9 percent of Christians. Coastal Karnataka consists of three districts named Udupi, Dakshina Kannada and Uttara Kannada. In this region, BJP performed very well winning 16 out of 19 seats. The person who posted the above mentioned Tweet doesn’t seem to be happy about the BJP’s performance in the region and hence resorted to posting a doctored and old video to mislead Twitter users.
The video is probably from the time between August 2008 to September 2008 when the tensions between the Hindus and Christians in the area were at an all time high. Many clashes between both communities took place with several churches being attacked. Several Bajrang Dal workers were arrested in the aftermath of the incident. The BS Yeddyurappa led BJP government set up a committee for thorough investigation into the incident, which found that the people from Bajrang dal had no involvement in the incident and exonerated them all.
Another image being circulated around social media is about a ‘Lingayat church’ while a google reverse image search revealed that the photo is actually of Our Lady of Dolours Church in Dahanu, Maharashtra.
The fake news was busted by Boomlive which is a website about fact-checking. This incident clearly shows that circulation of fake news and videos are done intentionally by some miscreants with an intention to incite communal violence in society. Another intention of doing this could be defaming BJP government in the state and center. The message these people want to spread is that a Hindutvavadi government is in power and the minorities of the country are not safe. Since BJP government came to power, there has rarely been any incident of communal violence or riot in the country. This indicates that minorities in the country are safer under the BJP government but some people want to create perception that minorities are not safe with the use of fake news and misleading posts.
It is expected from the people using social media to cross check any such images or videos for their authenticity. The circulation of such images and videos may be done with bad intentions of inciting communal violence. Since the internet and social media have became popular, spreading deliberate misinformation and hoaxes has become easy for bad elements of society. Believing in any such fake news could lead to inappropriate action towards any person or community which will be harmful to the society.
