Old Altered BBC News Report Going Viral Linking To The Recent Violence In West Bengal.

Recently an image of a BBC Hindi news report went viral on social media. The report has a text in Hindi “टोपी लुंगी पहनकर संघ के लोग बरसा रहे थे ट्रेन पर पत्थर’: प्रेस रिव्यू” with two different images. One image shows a man wearing a Muslim cap in front of a burning vehicle and the other image shows a man wearing a Muslim cap vandalizing a train. Sharing the image on Facebook, users claimed that the BBC News report shows the recent violence in West Bengal where RSS members were stone pelting on a train in disguise of Muslims. 

Facebook Link | Archived Link.

However, as we investigated, we came to know that the claim was misleading. The viral news screenshot is old and the images used are not related to the recent violence in West Bengal. Here’s the fact check.

Fact Check 

We started our investigation by conducting a reverse image search. This led us to the original BBC report published on 21 December 2019. The translation of the Hindi report reads, “Protests are being held in different parts of the country against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Meanwhile, six people were seen throwing stones at a train from Murshidabad in West Bengal. Two of these people have now been sent to police custody.

According to The Telegraph newspaper, these six people were wearing caps and lungis, all of them are said to be associated with the Sangh Parivar. Two of these six people have been sent to police custody for five days. The remaining four boys are minors, three of whom have been booked under serious crimes and sent to jail for 14 days.

One of the youths has been admitted to the hospital due to ill health. The age of all the minor youths is said to be 16-17 years.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has also expressed surprise on this issue and said, “How low will the BJP stoop to defame a community and set Bengal on fire?” 

The newspaper writes that 21-year-old Abhishek Sarkar, a member of BJP’s student wing ABVP, was seen changing clothes along with five other youths near the railway track, after which all these youths pelted stones on a train engine. The villagers caught these youths and handed them over to the police.”

Please read here. Archived Link.

The report published in The Telegraph can be read here.

Now, we conducted a reverse image search of the image where a person can be seen standing in front of a burning vehicle. This led us to a report published in the Business Standard on 14 December 2019 that contained the viral image. The caption of the image reads, “A protestor agitates against the passing of Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) at Sanmtragachi in Howrah district of West Bengal”

Please read here. 

Another report containing the same viral image can be read here.

A reverse image search of the second image where a person can be seen vandalizing a train led us to a report published on a website on 14 December 2019.  The report containing the viral image read, “As hundreds gathered in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act that was recently passed in both Houses of the Parliament, a railway station was set on fire on Friday. At least four buses of the state transport department were also torched on Kona Expressway in Howrah…”

Please read here.

Taking this clue we conducted a relevant keyword search and found a report published in The Statesman on 13 December 2019. According to the report, In Beldanga, Citizenship Act protestors torched the station master’s cabin and ransacked the ticket counter before setting it on fire.

This makes it clear that the viral news report is old and the images used are not related to the recent violence in West Bengal.

Conclusion 

From our investigation, we can say that the claim is misleading. The viral BBC news report is old and the images used in the report have been altered. The images show the CAA protest in 2019. This has no link to the recent violence in West Bengal.