CLAIM
A collage which shows police with a consignment of counterfeit currency has been shared on social media with the claim that the money was recovered from the car of an RSS supporter in Gujarat.
The claim, in Hindi, reads, “गुजरात से नकली नोटों का भंडार पकड़ा गया और ईमानदार संघ समर्थक श्री केतन दवे की कार से मिला ये नकली नोटों का जखीरा...” (Translation: The counterfeit currency was recovered from the car of an RSS supporter Ketan Dave in Gujarat).
The aforementioned post had been shared over 7,000 times at the time of writing this piece. The same post with the same claim has been shared by many others on Facebook and Twitter.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The claim with the post has been shared is completely false.
In reality, the images show Telangana Police, who had busted an interstate gang which was involved in circulating fake Rs 2,000 notes. According to news reports, the incident took place in Vemsoor Mandal area of Khammam district and the police has arrested five persons in connection with the incident.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On conducting a simple reverse search using Google search engine, we came across a tweet by news agency ANI, which had reported on the incident on 2 November 2019. According to the tweet, the incident was reported from Telangana where cops had arrested five people for cheating the public in the guise of exchanging Rs 2,000 denomination.
We ran a key word search on Google and came across multiple news reports which had reported on the same incident. According to a report in Tamil newspaper Dinamani, the gang printed fake Rs 2,000 notes and cheated people by showing them the original notes. According to the police they had duped people and stole nearly Rs 40 lakh.
None of the news reports had any mention of an RSS supporter being involved in the incident.
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