A couple of images, of bearded men destroying a statue, are being circulated on social media. “CCTV फुटेज में साफ दिख रहा है विद्यासागर जी की मूर्ति को टीएमसी के लोग तोड़ रहे हैं #घटिया_राजनीती और इल्जाम BJP पर….pls share this post (It is clearly visible in the CCTV footage, TMC workers are breaking the statue of Vidyasagar. #filthypolitics and blame on BJP. -translated)”, reads a message posted along with these images by Pintu Kumar Ray, an individual user on Facebook. It is being claimed that these images are the visual evidence of TMC workers who are supposedly seen vandalizing Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s statue.
Few more individuals have shared the images with an identical narrative on Facebook and Twitter. A message tweeted with the images also claims that Muslims of the TMC had vandalised the statue.
Artefact destroyed in Iraq
Upon reverse searching the image on Google, Alt News found that the images pertain to an incident when artefacts in Iraq were destroyed by ISIS terrorists. “ISIS has again destroyed cultural treasures, this time bulldozing the site of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq, the nation’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said.”, stated a report published by American news network CNN on March 5, 2015. The Guardian had also published the images in an op-ed related to the incident on February 27, 2015.
In conclusion, old photographs of 2015, showing ISIS terrorists destroying artefacts in northern Iraq were shared as TMC workers vandalizing the statue of Vidyasagar in West Bengal.
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