An old video of mob vandalising a railway station in West Bengal, has been shared widely with a false and communal claim that it shows local Muslims went on rampage inside the station angered by the sound of a train whistle disturbing their namaz (prayers).
BOOM found that the video is old and shows an incident that happened during the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in West Bengal.
The old clip has been revived and shared with the bizarre and communal claim.
The caption with the video reads as, "Mahishashur raillway station in Murshidabad West Bengal destroyed saying that sound of train whistle is disturbing their namaz. We are able to see through the future of India."
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Fact Check
In the video a signboard in Bangla stating 'Naopara Mahishashur' is visible. Taking a cue, we ran a Bangla keyword search and found a similar vandalism video on YouTube uploaded on December 14, 2019. The upload date shows that the video is not recent.
The caption with the video translates to, 'Protest rally against CAB and NRC at Naopara Mahishashur station in Sagardighi'.
We also found more videos uploaded on Facebook at the same time showing similar visuals.
We did another keyword search related to anti-CAA protests in West Bengal on YouTube and found a longer version of the same video uploaded on WildFilmsIndia's official YouTube channel on November 18, 2020. The video is captioned as 'Young men vandalise railway station in West Bengal | CAA/ NRC incidents in India'.
The description of the video is as follows: 'Residents near a Railway station in West Bengal storm the place with wooden sticks and breaking the government property as an act to attract attention. Young boys are also seen with sticks hitting the walls and fan inside the building. Broken furniture littered around the room as the young people go on a rampage inside the station.'
The comparison between the viral video and the footage uploaded on WildFilmsIndia's YouTube channel can be seen below.
Comparison
We also found Bartaman Patrika's report published on December 15, 2019 about the incident.
BOOM reached out to Sagardighi police station's sub-inspector Priyotosh Sinha. He confirmed that the incident happened in 2019 during the anti-CAA protest in the area and that the viral claim is false.
Also Read: 2017 Protest Clip Showing Muslims Praying On Street Shared Out Of Context
