Video from West Bengal passed off as communal violence in Bengaluru

On the night of August 11, three people had died in deadly clashes that broke out in Bengaluru. The violence had been sparked by a Facebook post. Naveen, the nephew of Congress MLA Akhanda Srinivas Murthy, had allegedly made a derogatory post on the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad. After the incident, Hindustan Times had reported an unverified claim that 60,000 rioters were present that night, which was later updated. After this, another rumour began circulating that the post that caused the riots was written in response to an anti-Hindu Facebook post.

Now, another video is going viral on social media with a similar communal angle. A Facebook page called Cocktail Videos uploaded a three-minute-long video, writing, “Hindus just keep sleeping while these people are doing their work in Bangalore.” The video had been viewed around 78,000 times at the time of writing. Several policemen along with personnel from the Rapid Action Force (RAF) can be seen firing tear gas shells while retreating from a crowd of people.

The video is viral with the same claims that it is from Bengaluru.

Fact-check

When we ran a reverse image search of a frame of this video, we found a number of media reports from different outlets. These reports from July 19, 2020, state that the incident took place in West Bengal’s Dinajpur.

According to a News18 report dated July 19, 2020, “The suspected rape and subsequent murder of a teenaged girl in North Dinajpur district of West Bengal on Sunday triggered violent protests in the Chopra area with a mob blockading National Highway 31 and setting ablaze government buses and police vehicles, demanding arrest of the culprits, police officers said here. Security forces used tear gas shells to disperse the protestors.”

Similar visuals can be seen in an ANI video from July 19, 2020.

#WATCH West Bengal: Clash breaks out between security personnel and locals, during the protest against an alleged gang-rape & murder of a girl in Kalagachh in Uttar Dinajpur. Security forces use tear gas shells to disperse the protestors. pic.twitter.com/aGe3CAo6P9

— ANI (@ANI) July 19, 2020

Several other media outlets such as NDTV, Dainik Bhaskar, Republic TV and Amar Ujala also published reports on the incident.

On July 19, BJP’s West Bengal unit had claimed in a tweet that the girl was the sister of one of their local booth presidents and had been raped by ‘Feroze Ali’. They also targetted the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led government raising questions about the safety of women in the state.

A 16 years old girl raped by Feroze Ali in Chopra. She died today morning. Did she pay the price of being the sister of the local BJP Booth President? And sadly, a state governed by a woman CM cannot protect it’s girls. pic.twitter.com/Fw7Fp4v6hJ

— BJP Bengal (@BJP4Bengal) July 19, 2020

The West Bengal police had briefed the public on certain details surrounding the incident in a series of tweets on July 19. One of the tweets states, “As per the post mortem report cause of death is “effect of poison”. No injury marks anywhere in the body has been found. There is no sign of sexual or physical assault.”

On July 20, police had recovered a boy’s body from a pond, the same place that the girl’s body had been found earlier. After their investigation, the police was able to deduce that both of them had died of poisoning, with no injury marks on their bodies. On July 22, the police clarified what they had discovered in a series of four tweets. They explained that the incident was being given a false narrative in a deliberate attempt to mislead.

In a July 21 report by The Times of India, locals in the area were quoted as saying that the boy and girl were from different communities and had reportedly been in a relationship. Therefore, a video originating from West Bengal is being circulated online with the false claim that it is from Bengaluru.