A video showing three men in saffron clothes has gone viral with many users claiming they were imposters. In the video, some individuals question the three men to check their knowledge of Hinduism. Social media users claim that the men were Muslims disguised as Hindu monks.
The person recording the video confronts the three men in saffron robes, asking, “Recite at least one shloka (a verse in Sanskrit), or we won’t let you go. How many gods’ names do you know?” To this, one of the men responds, “We worship Bholenath.” The recorder then challenges them, asking how they could be true sadhus if they only know one deity’s name. The crowd gathered around them could then be heard labelling them as ‘Bangladeshi’ and ‘Rohingya’ and some proposing to beat them up. The man recording the video then tells the crowd that one of the sadhus is actually named ‘Salman’ and shows the crowd an ID card to support his claim.
Right-wing propaganda outlet OpIndia (@OpIndia_in) published a report carrying Zee 24 Kalak’s tweet. They posted a link to the report on their official X handle, with the caption: “Salman and his companions were begging wearing saffron clothes. Their true identity was revealed through an ID card. They could neither recite any shloka nor properly name the Hindu gods and goddesses.”
Gujarati News Channel Zee 24 Kalak (@Zee24Kalak) tweeted about the incident on November 2 with a caption in Gujarati that can be translated as: “Salman, disguised as a sadhu, caught! Fraud exposed as ID check reveals the truth of a sadhu begging in Surat.”
The title of the report in Hindi can be translated as: “When asked for Sanskrit shlokas, he started praying, could tell the name of only one Hindu God: Salman and gang were begging in Surat posing as ‘sadhu’, the secret was revealed through ID”. In the report, OpIndia claims that the three men were ‘Muslims who were roaming around dressed as sadhus’ and were later arrested by the police. (Archive 1, 2, 3)
Another propaganda outlet, Sudarshan News (@SudarshanNewsTV), tweeted a video report about this incident which was shared with the following caption: “In Surat, Gujarat, ‘jihadi’ Salman and his gang were begging while posing as sadhus… Three ‘jihadis’ dressed in saffron robes and posing as sadhus have been arrested.” (Archive)
RSS mouthpiece Panchjanya (@epanchjanya) also tweeted about the incident. The caption in Hindi said, “Muslims caught in the guise of sadhus! If you want to become a sadhu, why not become Hindu? A Muslim man named Salman, dressed in saffron attire and posing as a sadhu, was caught begging. This incident took place in Surat, Gujarat, on November 3, 2024, after which the police arrested him. This is not the first time—Muslims disguised as sadhus have been caught 16 times before!”.
Several other users on X such as @ajaychauhan41, @Sudanshutrivedi shared the viral video and amplified the claim that the three saffron-clad men were Muslim men disguised as sadhus. Below are a few instances.
Fact Check
To check the authenticity of the claim, we looked for news reports about the incident. We found a report by Divya Bhaskar, the Gujarati daily from the Dainik Bhaskar Group. Dated November 4, the report says that upon police investigation it was revealed that all three men were Hindu and hailed from Junagadh.
The report quoted inspector R B Gojiya of the Adajan police station in Surat, who stated that the three monks were reported as suspicious individuals, and were subsequently questioned. Following the questioning, for verification, an investigation was initiated in Junagadh to determine their true identities. It was found that the names they provided were accurate. One individual’s name is Salmanath, which raised suspicions among people that he might belong to a different religion. However, it was confirmed that he was a Hindu.
Alt News accessed the voter ID card of the monk in question. In the image below it can be seen that the man’s name is Salmannath Parmar and his father’s name is Suramnath Parmar. The surname Parmar is associated with the Rajput clan who mostly hail from northern and central India, particularly from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and North Maharashtra.
This is not the first time that monks, particularly those who go begging from door to door, have been harassed on the unfounded suspicion that they are Muslims in disguise. In July this year, a group of three sadhus were falsely labelled as Muslims in Meerut. There have been other instances where wandering monks have been falsely accused of being child-kidnappers. Related reports can be found here, here and here.
This article was originally published on AltNews.