Fact Check: Viral video of a man urinating on Hanuman idol is from UP, not Hyderabad

(Source: Screengrab of YouTube)Hyderabad: A video of a man urinating on a Hanuman idol is being shared widely on social media with users claiming that it is a recent video from Shamirpet in Hyderabad. On WhatsApp, people are urging others to share this video as much as possible and put the same WhatsApp status to find the alleged culprit in the video.

We also found the same video as YouTube Shorts (viewer discretion advised) where a user in the comment section also claimed that the video is from Shamirpet, Hyderabad.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the viral video is neither from Hyderabad nor a recent incident.

Through our investigation, we found a tweet on the official Twitter handle of the Fact Check wing of the Telangana government clarifying that the video of a man urinating on the Hanuman idol is not from the Shamirpet area of Hyderabad.

The tweet read, “A video showing a man urinating on a Hanuman statue is circulating on social media with false information that the incident took place in Shamirpet area of Hyderabad recently. However, it is untrue that this incident took place in Shamirpet. It happened in October 2018 in the Barnahal area of the Mainpuri district of Uttar Pradesh. Arjun Singh Jatav, the accused in the video, was arrested by the police and a case has been registered under various sections for deliberately offending religious beliefs and has been produced in the court.”

Taking this as a cue, we performed a keyword search and found a tweet on the incident that mentioned that the incident took place in Baranhal, Uttar Pradesh. The user thanked UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath for arresting the accused, identified as Arjun Singh Jatav.

A case was registered against Arjun for deliberately insulting religious beliefs and he was presented in the local court. The court granted him bail in this case. A copy of the judgment can be found here.

Further, NewsMeter contacted Niranjan Reddy, inspector of Shamirpet, who also refuted the claim. “The incident is from 2018 from Uttar Pradesh, not Shamirpet, Hyderabad. A case was registered against those forwarding the fake claim,” he said.

Hence, it is evident that the viral video is not recent and unrelated to Hyderabad.