Social media users have been sharing claims which say that the Facebook post by T Naveen Kumar reportedly insulting Prophet Mohammed, which led to the violence in Bengaluru this week, was actually a reply to a derogatory post by a Muslim man about a Hindu goddess.
According to them, Kumar was targeted for his post and the original derogatory post by the Muslim man was ignored. However, we found that none of this is true and a doctored photo is being used to make this claim.
110 people have been arrested for arson, stone pelting and assault on police in an incident of violence which left three people dead and over 50 cops injured.
CLAIM
We found multiple social media users sharing this claim, stating that a man by the name of Basheer Adyar had uploaded a derogatory post on Facebook insulting the Hindu goddess Lakshmi and also brought PM Narendra Modi into it. The post allegedly also contained a derogatory version of a well-known poem about Goddess Lakshmi.
According to the claim, Naveen, the 34-year-old nephew of Congress legislator Akhanda Srinivas Murthy, had replied to this post with a derogatory cartoon of Prophet Mohammad.
The Quint received a query from one of its readers about the claim.
Many other social media users shared similar claims. The Quint is not adding these posts to this article due to their nature.
WHAT WE FOUND
We noticed that the screenshot of the post and the alleged comment being shared did not look like a real post on Facebook. The alleged original post did not appear to have a break between the post and the comments section and the so-called ‘reply’ by Naveen appears right under it.
However, in reality, after a post, as can be seen below, there is a space for comments, likes and shares before the comments actually show up.
Further, on searching Facebook with keywords in Kannada, we came across several users sharing the same post by Basheer Adyar but in June 2018.
The posts also said that this man called Basheer Adyar had been sharing vulgar and derogatory posts about Goddess Lakshmi and PM Modi and had also vulgarised the lyrics of a devotional song.
Moreover, on searching Google for Basheer Adyar in Kannada, we came across a report by Kannada daily Prajavani from 17 June 2018 which said that this derogatory post uploaded by a profile called Basheer Adyar in June 2018 had caused considerable social media uproar. The article also said that the same account had also uploaded a derogatory post about Chhatrapati Shivaji.
A June 2018 article by The Hindu also said that police in Mangaluru had taken suo motu cognisance of the content and registered a case under Sections 153(a) and 505(2) of the Indian Penal Code against the man who had been identified as Basheer Adyar Basheer, a resident of Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, for the post.
Further, we found a tweet by a TOI journalist in Mangaluru who said the same:
Therefore, it is clear that while this derogatory post about Hindu goddesses is real, it is not recent and dates back to June 2018. Further, we could not find any trace of either the account which uploaded the post or the post itself still being on Facebook.
So it is clear that Naveen could not have replied to a post which no longer exists on Facebook and that a photo of a Facebook post from 2018 has been doctored in order to propagate a false claim.
(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us atwebqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)