A video is circulating on social media where a person is seen wearing a mask and a headscarf. When a bus conductor asks the person to remove the mask, it is revealed that he is a man.
Those sharing the video claim that it shows a Muslim man disguised as a woman to kidnap Hindu girls.
A social media user shared the video with the caption, “Muslim boys sit next to Hindu girls posing as women and make them smell chemicals to make them unconscious. When girl faints, they call ambulance and pretend to take her to hospital and make the girls disappear. Many girls and women have disappeared. (sic)”
SouthCheck found that the claim was false. We found that the man had disguised himself as a woman to get a free bus ride in Delhi.
On searching with appropriate keywords, we found that the video was shared by NewsJ on March 24, 2022, with a caption that read, “Man Disguises As Woman To Get A Free Bus Ride In Delhi.”
We found that Punjab Kesari TV had also reported about the incident. It stated that the man in the video was disguising himself as a girl so that he did not have to pay the bus fare. The man’s religion is not mentioned in the reports and the reports did not state that the man intended to abduct ‘Hindu girls.’
The Delhi government announced free bus rides for women in October 2019 and has now also made the services free for transpersons.
Hence, we can ascertain that the viral claim is misleading and has no communal angle.