A clipped portion of a three-year-old Zee News video report is viral on social media with captions falsely claiming that it shows a massacre of Hindu families by Rohingya Muslims in a village in Kolkata, West Bengal.
BOOM found that the viral clip has been culled from a 2017 Zee News report and the incident being reported on took place in Rakhine Province, Myanmar.
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Reports of post-poll violence in West Bengal had started pouring in ever since Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress won the election on May 2. Meanwhile, the seven-member committee that was constituted by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to probe the alleged post-poll violence in Bengal has on July 13 submitted its report to the Calcutta High Court. According to an India Today report, the Calcutta High Court has said that it would hear the case on July 22.
Against this backdrop, a 2.20 minute long clip is viral now claiming that it shows violence against Hindus in a village in Kolkata.
The viral clip shows a Zee News report wherein the anchor, Sudhir Chaudhary clearly says that the incident is from Maungdaw district of Rakhine where Rohingya Mulsims outnumber Hindus. The video shows a news reporter speaking to the bereaved family members of those who were killed by Rohingya militants belonging to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) in August 2017.
A Hindi caption with the viral video translates to 'One thousand Hindu men have disappeared from a small village in Kolkata, including small children and elders, 45 bodies have been recovered. Rohingya Muslims killed Hindus, listen to the report of Zee News, please retweet so that this news reaches the administration'.
(Hindi: कलकत्ता के एक छोटे गांव से एक हजार हिन्दू आदमी छोटे बच्चे तथा बड़े मिला कर गायब हो गए हैं 45 शव बरामद किए हैं रोहिंग्या मुसलमानों ने हिंदूओं का कत्ल कर दिया जी न्यूज की खबर सुने प्लीज रिट्वीट जरूर जरूर करें जिससे यह खबर शासन प्रशासन तक पहुंचे)
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The video is disturbing in nature, viewers' discretion is advised.
The video has been shared from several Facebook pages with similar claims.
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Fact Check
BOOM watched the video closely and found the news anchor mentioning the name of Rakhine province. We did a keyword search on the YouTube channel of Zee News and found a longer version of the same video uploaded in August 2017.
The title of the video reads 'DNA analyses on Hindus mass murder in Myanmar's Rakhine state'. The report covers the 2017 massacre of Hindu civilians in Rakhine province of Myanmar by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).
The portion between the timestamps 2.58 and 5.15 has been clipped from this video and is being shared with a false caption now.
BOOM searched the internet for more reports on the incident and found several articles detailing the incident.
According to a BBC article published in May 2018, an Amnesty International investigation had claimed that the disturbing incident was from August of 2017 when members of ARSA had brutally attacked and killed 99 Hindu civilians in Maungdaw township in Myanmar. ARSA had however denied its involvement, said the BBC report.
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BOOM has debunked a plethora of fake information wherein old videos and pictures of violence had been revived with false captions linking them to violence in West Bengal.
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Click here to read more such fact checks.
On June 10, West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar had tweeted a series of videos showing lawlessness and tagged the state's police and home department handles.
However, these videos are not connected to the viral Zee News clip. BOOM could not independently verify the videos Dhankhar tweeted.
Who Are Rohingyas?
Rohingyas are an ethnic group living mainly in the Rakhine province of Western Myanmar and mainly comprising Muslims. Myanmar has not granted Rohingyas full citizenship and thus their movement is restricted mainly within the Rakhine state. Sectarian violence between Rohingyas and Rakhine state's native Buddhists began flaring up in 2012 and spread to other parts of Myanmar.
The ethnic conflict could finally be contained after military intervention in 2013. Read more about it here.
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