CLAIM
A video which shows an old man dancing in public has gone viral on social media with the claim that he was harassed by a mob in south India and forced to dance.
The viral claim further says that he is a Brahmin and his religious thread (Janaiyu) was forcibly removed.
The clip is ten seconds long and has been shared by multiple users on Facebook and Twitter.
At the time of writing the story, the tweet mentioned below had garnered over 3,000 retweets and likes.
An archived version of the tweet can be seen here.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The video has been shared with a completely false narrative. Neither was the old man forced to dance by the mob nor was his religious thread removed.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
When we searched for the phrase ‘Indu periyavar meratta’ which translates to ‘Hindu man harassed’ on Google, we came across an article on a Tamil website ‘You Turn’ which had debunked the viral claim.
We also found out the entire video clip from which the ten-second video has been trimmed and circulated on social media.
The entire video was uploaded by a Tamil Youtube channel ‘Karuppar Koottam’ which shows the man dancing with a crowd holding black flags with the photograph of social reformer Periyar EV Ramasamy.
Also, at around 1:18 minutes, the old man can be seen adjusting his janaiyu and interacting with the drummers, who neither harass him nor jostle him around.
For further clarity, The Quint got in touch with Karuppar Koottam who informed us the video had been recorded during an event in Tamil Nadu’s Kanchipuram.
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