Ten year old video circulates as raid on TN church involved in ‘Tuticorin riots’

Church was the training centre for preparation of petrol bombs and creating riots. This is one of the church raided by TN police at Tuticorin after the riots. Could this continuous usage of religious place for anti social activities be allowed. Main stream media is not covering this. This is the text accompanying a video which shows the police beating up people inside a church. The video is around three and a half minutes long, in which policemen can be seen lathicharging people and rounding them up inside police vans. It has been claimed that the incident is of Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu and that the church being raided was involved in anti-social activities, acting as a training centre for preparation of communal riots.

The video with the aformentioned claim has been shared extensively on Facebook in the last 48 hours, where individual users have shared it on their timelines. The repetitive nature of the text accompanying the video indicates that it is viral on WhatsApp as well.

The message has also been shared widely on Twitter. Among those who shared it is a user @sengarajay235 who is a self-proclaimed Hindu nationalist and is followed on the social media platform by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This is one of the church raided by TN police at Tuticorin after the riots. Church was the training centre for preparation of petrol bombs and creating riots.Could this continuous usage of religious place for anti social activities be allowed?
Why Paid Media Silent? pic.twitter.com/d6MGW2SfEq

— कुंवर अजयप्रताप सिंह (@sengarajay235) May 29, 2018

Following the declaration of the result of the Karnataka assembly election in May 2018, this very video had gone viral on social media with the claim that RSS and BJP cadres had run amok in Mangalore, attacking and vandalising a church. The Alt News report can be read here.

Karnataka, not Tamil Nadu. 2008, not 2018.

The video in question is ten years old. The incident had occurred in Mangalore, Karnataka and was reported by Al Jazeera. As mentioned in the Al Jazeera report, the incident happened in the St Sebastian Church in Permannur in Mangalore. The Al Jazeera report is dated October 5, 2008.

Daijiworld.com which focuses on news from coastal Karnataka reported this incident on September 15, 2008. Later, witnesses blamed Bajrang Dal for the attack on the church in their testimonies before Justice B.K. Somasekhara Commission of Inquiry.

Alt News has observed that many of these videos and images that are mischievously placed out of context and shared widely often carry the message that mainstream media has not reported the said incident. This is a tactic that works because these ‘reports’ are usually fake and understandably do not find space in mainstream news outlets. Many of these videos and photos are also often shared in completely opposing contexts.