By Truvee Curating Team
Good morning. Last few days, we saw a lot of viral fake news from West Bengal. In this digest, we look at the misinformation spread related to the post election violence in West Bengal.
Fake/Misleading Photos and Videos of violence in West Bengal
Several fact-checking websites have flagged as fake many photos and videos that are being circulated as evidence of post election violence in different regions of West Bengal. In the recently concluded elections in the state, Mamta Bannerjee's led Trinamool Congress emerged as the winner, sweeping to power for the third consecutive term. Against this backdrop, the videos and images showing incidents of violence — beatings, killings and in a few cases, harrassment and assaulting of women — allegedly perpetrated by TMC workers against BJP affiliates and supporters are being widely shared on social media. However, many of them have been busted as false and misleading by fact checkers.
For instance, an old video from Brazil is being passed off as BJP activist Uttam Ghosh being hacked to death. Another disturbing video from Bangladesh is being circulated with a false claim that a BJP woman worker was raped and murdered by TMC goons because of her political affiliation with the BJP. A video of a young woman wailing in front of her father from Andhra Pradesh is being shared with a false claim that the man was injured by thugs supported by Bannerjee. The ruling party's IT cell also posted a photo of an India Today's journalist claiming that he was a BJP supporter named Manik Moitra who was killed during violence in Sitalkuchi in the state. These posts and tweets which were shared by BJP's official twitter handle, BJP's West Bengal Facebook page and numerous other BJP supporters were later taken down.
False allegations based on unrelated old photos are also being spread on social media that Kolkata police is assisting TMC's workers to intimidate locals. The police in the photos, taken in August 2020 during a communal clash, was escorting a local religious leader who was going to help dispense the tension. Other men clinging on the side of the police van were helping clear out the crowd.
In another instance of stoking political fears of certain sections of the society, old news reports from 2018 related to closing of 125 RSS schools are being revived as a recent decision by Mamta Banerjee post her election win. These schools were closed in 2018 after it was found that they were operating without a no-objection certificate from the government and were not following the syllabus.
Image Source: Alt News
A lot of these fake viral posts and tweets are being disseminated with a narrative that West Bengal is descending into chaos and Bannerjee is not adequately handling the situation. Many BJP supporters have urged the center to invoke president's rule in the state, even advocating for the army to take over. While political violence is tragic, should be condemned and the culprits be investigated and put on trial, communalizing the incidents and propagating misinformation at this time is like adding fuel to fire.
So far, news reports state that 14 people linked to both BJP and TMC have been killed in these violent clashes. False stories like above are only making the task of restoring law and order in the state as well as bringing real perpetrators to justice more difficult.
We advise all our readers to be conscious of this growing spate of misinformation around us and to always double-check the veracity of a given piece of information.