A video of a fire at a railway station in West Bengal last year is being shared online with false and communal claims that it shows rioters setting fire to Mira Road railway station in Thane district, near Mumbai.
BOOM found that the claim is false. The video dates back to April 2023 and captures a fire that erupted at Santoshpur railway station in the South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal.
Mira Road, a suburb in Thane district, Maharastra has been on edge after communal clashes broke out on January 21, 2024 - the eve of the consecration ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. The Indian Express reported a mix of provocative slogans from a Hindu procession, rumours and lack of police personnel led to the violence in Mira Road's Naya Nagar area, a predominantly Muslim locality. Hindustan Times reported that a total of 19 individuals have been arrested by the police on charges of rioting and posting inflammatory content on social media. Local municipal authorities also carried out demolitions of illegal structures in the area in response.
Several verified handles on X (formerly Twitter) posted the old video with "Mira Road Riots" hashtag and wrote, "Current Situation of Mira Road Railway Station.."
Click here to view the post.
Click here to view the post.
Fact Check
BOOM first noticed that Western Railway, through its official X handle, responded to one such post on January 24, 2024, dismissing the news as false and clarifying that no such incident occurred at Mira Road station. They also shared a visual from the Mira Road station to provide additional clarification.
Click here to view the post.
We then ran a reverse image search on a keyframe from the viral video and found a video by the Bengali news outlet Sangbad Pratidin that featured same visuals on its report published on April 6, 2023. The description with the video report states, "Massive fire break out in Santoshpur station".
Following that lead, we conducted a keyword search in Bengali and found multiple news reports from 2023 covering the incident.
According to a broadcast on ABP Ananda, a massive fire erupted at Santoshpur railway station in South 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, on April 6, 2023, at approximately 5:30 p.m., engulfing at least 15 shops in the flames. The report also mentioned that the fire incident resulted in the temporary suspension of train services on the Budge Budge-Sealdah section of the Eastern Railway by railway authorities.
On April 7, 2023, The Times of India reported, citing a railway official, that the fire caused no significant damage to railway property but did engulf shops that had encroached on the railway land. The report further adds, "The reason behind the fire has not been ascertained yet. Locals said a cylinder blast might have caused the fire as they heard the sound of an explosion."