A number of speculations related to deadly riots in Bengaluru on the night of August 11 are doing rounds on social media enraged over a derogatory Facebook post by Congress MLA Akhanda Srinivasa Murthy's nephew T Naveen Kumar about Prophet Mohammed.

Meanwhile, a section of social media users started sharing some screenshots claiming that Naveen's derogatory post was in response to another derogatory post about Hindu Gods. Dismissing this claim, a number of reports (Altnews and The Quint) were published stating that this is a false claim and the viral screenshots are morphed. 

It all started when a number of social media users started sharing screenshots of a Facebook post claiming Naveen’s post was a reaction to a derogatory post shared by a Muslim man, Adyar Basheer, targeting Hindu gods and Prime Minister Modi. 

One such screenshot was posted by a Twitter user named Sanjay Gandhi saying, " What caused #BangaloreViolence ? A Muslim, wrote derogatory post on Hindu Goddess Lakshmi. When a Hindu, wrote a post on #prophet_muhammad, intolerant Muslim terrorists started #BangloreRiots."

A screenshot was shared on Facebook by a user Om Prakash Singh with a caption, "So this is what happened in Bangalore. A peaceful person posted a picture of Modi and goddess Laxmi with an erotica poem, to which one intolerant Hindu replied with a meme on their Perfect Man, and rest is history."

These posts suggest that Basheer Adyar had uploaded a derogatory post on Facebook insulting the Hindu goddess Lakshmi and also brought PM Narendra Modi into it. According to these posts, Naveen responded to him with a ‘meme’ on Muhammed, the prophet of Islam, members of the Muslim community cropped out Basheer’s post and instigated the violence.

However, Basheer’s post is two years old and had created quite a stir back then. Below is a post on Facebook page ‘I Support Anant Kumar Hegde’ on which screenshot of Basheer's post was shared on June 16, 2018.

In our investigation, we found that Naveen's remark was not in response to Basheer's post as it no longer exists on Facebook. Therefore, these screenshots were morphed to add  Naveen's post in the comment section of a screenshot of Basheer’s old post to give a false impression.

However, these Fact Checks by Altnews and The Quint did not mention that Naveen's post was indeed in response to a Facebook post by SDPI leader Fairoz Pasha, and hence creating a perception that Naveen's controversial post was not in response to any other post. 

Reportedly, Fairoz shared a local TV channel’s report of remarks purportedly made in July by BJP MLA Murugesh Nirani, questioning the morality of Hindu gods. Nirani had at the time claimed that the message was posted inadvertently from his phone by his personal assistant. An officer said Fairoz has also been arrested.

Indian Express quoted a senior police official saying, "preliminary investigations revealed Naveen’s post on the evening of August 11 was a reaction to another post by SDPI leader Fairoz Pasha, who shared a local TV channel’s report of remarks purportedly made in July by BJP MLA Murugesh Nirani, questioning the morality of Hindu gods."

On August 11, Fairoz shared a 9-minute clip of a local news channel named B TV however, however, we could not independently very if Naveen's post was in response to this post or not. 

In conclusion, Naveen Kumar's derogatory post about Prophet Mohammed was in response to another post by SDPI leader Fairoz Pasha, who shared a local TV channel’s report of remarks purportedly made in July by BJP MLA Murugesh Nirani, questioning the morality of Hindu gods.
 

Misinformation by Fact-Checkers?

This is not the first time when Fact Checks by these fact-checkers (Altnews) has created a wrong perception. Fact-checkers are picking up only those social media posts that spread false stories similar to some of the verified real reports but ignores the real and verified news. Now people reading these fact checks assumes that all other authentic reports are fake as well.
During Tablighi Jamaat controversy, Altnews and several other fact-checkers did a good job in calling out old and unrelated videos being linked with Tablighi Jamaat members. However, they failed to mention that there were many verified reports of Jamaat members misbehaving and spitting on health workers which resulted in many journalists and social media users believing that all the news about members of Tablighi Jamaat spitting and misbehaving with police and health officials are fake. We had covered it in detail in April. You can read our Fact Check here:

Fact Check: No, the news about Tablighi Jamaat members spitting and misbehaving is not fake

Altnews and it's biased fact-checking

Here is a list that shows the bias in the work of Altnews

1. Altnews falsely accused PM Modi of giving a communal speech by cherry-picking one sentence from his speech. You can read our detailed report here.

AltNews falsely quoted PM Modi: PM has never said that more electricity was supplied during Eid than Diwali in U.P

2. Altnews falsely accused True Indology of lying by cropping out the caption and projecting an image of temple ruins as of Neolithic settlement in the BC era. You can read our detailed report here:

Alt News vs True Indology - Part 1: Pratik Sinha exposed himself while trying to expose True Indology

3. Altnews was caught misleading its followers by misquoting BJP and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prashad. They even fabricated a few lies to falsely prove that BJP is misleading the people on Rafale.

Fact Check: Did BJP actually mislead on Rafale or Altnews manufactured lies to defame BJP

And when we pointed out their mistake, they silently updated their article which is a clear violation of the IFCN code of principals.

Alt News failed to acknowledge our rebuttal, silently updated the article after our expose

4. Last year, Altnews had prematurely declares that no stones were thrown from inside the college during Vidyasagar violence. They updated the article after we pointed out but didn't bother inform their readers about the correction.

Fact Check: No stones were thrown from inside the campus during Vidyasagar college violence as claimed by AltNews

5. Altnews prematurely declares that PM Modi had quoted a satirical website. You can read our report here:

Fact Check: Did PM Modi quote a satirical website 'Faking News' to attack Omar Abdullah in Parliament?