Incident of Cops Removing Ganesha Idol in Hyderabad Passed off as Kerala

The police had removed people who were trying to "forcibly" install the idol at a "disputed site" in Hyderabad.

A video of police removing people carrying the idol of Lord Ganesha is being shared to claim that the visuals are from the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi and the incident took place in Kerala.

However, we found that the viral video is from Old City of Hyderabad in Telangana and police had removed people from the area who were trying to "forcibly" install the idol at a "disputed site" in Rakshapuram society, in Santoshnagar area.

CLAIM

The claim along with the video reads: "गणेशोत्सव में केरल में ये हालात हो गए है हिन्दुओ के"

(Translated: This is the situation of Hindus during Ganesh Chaturthi in Kerala.)

Several Facebook users shared the video with a similar claim and the archived version of the posts can be viewed here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

While scanning the comments on one of the Facebook posts carrying the viral visuals, we found that a user had suggested that the language being spoken in the video is Telugu.

INCIDENT FROM HYDERABAD, NOT KERALA

Next, we ran a search on Google with relevant keywords and came across an article published by Asianet News on 12 September that carried the viral visuals and mentioned that the incident took place in Old City of Hyderabad.

The Google search also led us to a Facebook post shared by 'Shaik younus Reporter' that carried night visuals and mentioned details of an incident, some of which were similar to the Asianet News article.

The text of the post mentioned that the incident took place in Rakshapuram society in Hyderabad's Santoshnagar.

Taking a cue from here, we searched on Facebook with relevant keywords and came across another video shared on 11 September that carried the viral video as well as night visuals. This post, too, mentioned that the incident took place in Rakshapuram society.

WHAT DOES THE FIR SAY?

Further, The Quint's WebQoof accessed a copy of the FIR registered in relation to the incident at the Santoshnagar police station on 11 September.

The complaint, lodged by P Papaiah, sub-inspector of Police, Santoshnagar police station, mentioned that the officer had received credible information that:

"A group of people were trying to install a Ganesha Idol at disputed site ie open land of Rakshapuram Co-op House Building Society Ltd, Rakshapuram, Hyderabad, and their installation might have caused disturbance between the two communities in the locality."

The complaint noted that the team of police officers tried to stop them as they were forcibly trying to install the idol, "but they stopped us and created a lot of nuisance and their act may cause breach of peace between the two communities".

Evidently, an incident of Ganesha idol being removed from a disputed land in Old City of Hyderabad was shared to falsely claim that it took place in Kerala.

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