A video of a man confronting a priest in a church is being shared on social media platforms. The man can be seen snatching the microphone from the priest's hands and assaulting him with it.
What is the claim?: Those sharing claimed that the video shows a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ayar assaulted a priest in a Bengaluru church.
Some users also claimed that it showed a 'saffron gang' members harassing the priest in Kanyakumari while 'collecting votes.'
(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)
Is this true?: No, the claim is false.
The footage is from an incident that occurred in Telangana from 27 May 2018, in which a church member assaulted the pastor due to an internal matter.
The Tamil Nadu police clarified in a Facebook post that the video was not from the state but from Telangana from 2018.
How did we find out?: With a relevant keyword search in Telugu, "church pastor attack 2018," we came across two Facebook posts from 2018.
One user, Srikanth Bsr, posted the same viral video with the caption that during the morning prayers at the CSI Church in Bhadrachalam town of Bhadradri Kothagudem district, some Christian members attacked Pastor Ananda Rao with a miku and seriously injured him.
Another Facebook user, Hindavashakti Prasad also posted the same video, along with a recording on a TV9 Telugu video report about an incident which mentioned the same note about the Pastor Rao being attacked in Bhadrachalam town.
TV9 Telugu posted on their X account on 27 May 2018 about an incident in Bhadradri where a 'church father' was attacked by members of the church. However, the YouTube video of the incident is not currently available. An archive can be seen here.
Tamil Nadu police denies claim: Taking to their Facebook page, Tamil Nadu police clarified that the video was being falsely shared as one from the state on 12 April.
They reported that the footage of a Christian priest being attacked by a crowd, occurred in Telangana in May 2018. This event did not take place in Tamil Nadu and is fake.
Church's comments on the incident: The same video was fact-checked back in 2018.
BOOM spoke to CSI Dornakal Diocese, whose jurisdiction the said church falls under.
Reverend R Israel Reddy, a ministerial secretary, said a member of the community beat Pastor Anand Rao of the Christ Church in Bhadrachalam town on 27 May 2018.
Reddy told BOOM, "The man who assaulted Pastor Rao is Shantakumar Kolapudi who was till last year the secretary of the church committee. We expelled him from the committee last year due to some problems he created."
He stated that following Pastor Rao's morning sermon on the day of the incident, Kolapudi approached the pastor inquiring about his expulsion and when he would be reinstated. When the pastor failed to provide a satisfactory response, Kolapudi hit him with the microphone.
Lastly, he clarified that Kolapudi was a regular church goer and no extremists groups or political party members attacked the pastor.
Conclusion: Clearly, an old video from 2018 is being falsely shared as one from Bengaluru as well as Tamil Nadu with false claims. However, the clip is from Telangana.
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