Old, unrelated images falsely shared as Hindu woman attacked by Muslims and Christians in Kerala

Twitter user Reene Lynn shared an image of a wounded woman claiming that she was attacked by members of the Muslim and Christian communities in Kerala. Her tweet reads, “Christian Missionaries & Jihadis in Kerala are terrorizing Hindus. This Hindu woman was beaten because she was worshiping.”

Lynn has been featured in an earlier Alt News fact-check report when she falsely claimed that a Hindu monk was beating by Muslims for entering a train compartment that was occupied by predominately Muslim people. The monk was beaten for misbehaving with a child.

Viral since 2018

“Shocking: Elderly Hindu woman brutally attacked, idol and temple desecrated by Muslims in secular Kerala. Why is Bollywood silent? #Asifa #islam,” read a tweet by fake news portal Shankhnaad last year. A second tweet read, “Jihadi attack on Hindus, Temple vandalism continue in Kerala during protest for Asifa. Worse fate awaits if Hindus continue with their ignorance and one-way secularism”. Alt News has exposed Shankhnaad several times in the past for circulating misinformation.

The same was also shared by a parody handle @BhaiyyaBabu with a similar text in Hindi, “केरल में एक हिन्दू महिला को पूजा करने की वजह से मारा गया और बेइज्ज़त किया गया ,मूर्ति तोड़ दिया शांतिदूतों ने। ज्यादा से ज्यादा शेयर करो ताकी पीड़ित महीला को इंसाफ मिल सके.#HinduDeniedEquality”.

This was also shared on a group called “We Support Narendra Modi” which has over 26 lakh members andd the post was shared more than 2500 times.

Fact-check

The image circulated by these handles was shared by a Bangladeshi Facebook page called Suptodisha in October 2017. According to the Facebook post, the incident happened in Chittagong district in Bangladesh.

The Bengali text accompanying the Facebook post reads, “This woman is Panchabala Karmakar, resident of Jaldhi village, under Banskhali Police Station of Chittagong district. This poor and helpless woman was beaten up badly in a pre-planned attack by his influential neighbour Pradip Ghosh and his son Biswajit. Her situation is now precarious. There is now no one to take care of her or treat her. Kindly share this.” One of the individuals in the images above is wearing a T-shirt with Bengali text on it.

While we were unable to independently verify the images, it certainly does not represent a recent incident from Kerala.

[This article was updated on April 29, 2020, with Reene Lynn’s tweet.]