Reports of celebrities visiting places of worship often hog news space, but a lot of the claims toe the line of controversy when presented out of context.
Actor Prakash Raj bore the brunt of this phenomenon when his recent visit to a church prompted questions about his religious beliefs.
CLAIM
A photo of Prakash Raj went viral on social media where he can be seen inside a church.
The captions on a number of photos posted on Twitter questioned the actor’s religious beliefs.
The comments on these tweets evoked strong responses, with a few users claiming that the actor is ‘anti-Hindu.’
TRUE OR FALSE
The post is misleading and does not capture the context of Prakash Raj’s visit. The actor was visiting places of worship of several religions and had tweeted about the visits himself, saying that he intends to encourage the idea of ‘inclusive India’.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
A number of Twitter accounts have put out the image with similar captions as the one shown above. These misleading posts have been re-tweeted several times.
Here’s what Raj had written on Twitter about visiting places of worship earlier this month:
The actor wrote (in Kannada) in the tweet, “Respect for all religions. We are respected by everyone for our special culture.”
Raj also told The Quint that the question is not about his personal religious beliefs, but about the secular and inclusive fabric of the Indian society.
“Ours is an inclusive country and that is what I am trying to establish. If I go to an area for my campaigning and a church in that locality wants to say a prayer on my behalf, I will go. Similarly in other localities, if a gurudwara or a mosque or a temple asks me to visit them and sees me as somebody standing for secularism, I will definitely visit that place of worship.”Prakash Raj, Actor
“If someone creates an issue out of these visits, it highlights the cheap mentality of that person,” he added.
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