An old video of an incident in Surat is being shared as the recent incident in Karnataka - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
October 3, 2023
A video of a few people vandalizing a blue bus is being shared on social media as the visuals of the recent incident in Karnataka. The post claims that Muslims attacked the bus because the driver didn’t stop the bus near her house when a Muslim woman asked him for it. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Muslims vandalized a bus in Karnataka as the driver didn’t stop the bus when a Muslim women asked him for it.
Fact: The incident took place during a rally against mob lynching in Surat in 2019. The viral video is of this incident where some Muslims pelted stones at buses on the road and destroyed them. So, the claim made in the post is False.
If you watch the video carefully, you can see ‘Sitilink’ written on the bus. Through keyword search, we found that Sitilink or Surat BRTS is a public bus transport system based in Surat, Gujarat.
Subsequent research led us to a video published by Divyang News Channel where similar scenes were revealed in June 2019 with the description, “Surat Police fire tear gas shells as a rally against mob lynching incidents turn violent.”
In 2019, some Muslims from the Versatile Minorities Forum (VMF) organized a rally in Surat against the mob lynching incidents in the country. As it turned violent, the police had to fire tear gas shells. News reports on the incident stated that five policemen were injured in the incident. Some news articles on this incident can be found (here, here, and here).
To sum up, an old video of an incident in Surat is being shared as the recent incident in Karnataka.