Old video of burqa-clad man caught outside mosque falsely shared as RSS man apprehended

A video of a burqa-clad man, in possession of a knife, is floating on social media with the claim that an RSS man was apprehended by a crowd outside a mosque.

The claim has been shared by several Facebook users with the message, “Dangerous conspiracy. RSS man in burqa caught by masjid.”

The video has also been shared sans context with the caption – “A Man caught while entering Masjid wearing Burka having Big Weapon.”

2018 incident

Alt News performed a Google search with the keywords ‘Karnataka man burkha mosque’ as the men in the video can be heard conversing in Kannada. We were directed to news reports from May 2018. According to a News 18 Kannada broadcast, “A young man was caught by the public wearing a burka and moving around a mosque in HBR Layout. People grew suspicious after observing the individual’s movements and caught him before handing over him to the police for further questioning.”

The incident was also reported by Deccan Chronicle which said that the man apprehended in Bangalore was Shivaraj. “Preliminary investigations revealed that Shivaraj, a native of Raichur, had come to the city in search of a job. He had borrowed money from his friend, who wanted it back. Frustrated, Shivaraj decided to assault him and came to the layout in pursuit of his friend. Shivaraj confessed that he had no money to repay debt and that his friend had not given him sufficient time to pay it back. So decided to attack his friend. He wore the burqa to hide his identity, the police said,” per the report.

A year-old case of personal enmity has been shared on social media as RSS man, disguised in a burqa, caught outside a mosque.