By: Rohith Gutta
May 2 2023
A mob attacked some police officials over the death of a minor in Kaliyaganj, West Bengal. The incident occurred weeks after the Ram Navami clashes.
Context
Clashes broke out in West Bengal during the Hindu festival of Ram Navami in the last week of March. Processions during the festival have been subject to increasing violence in the last few years. Protests seen in districts like Hooghly and Howrah districts also spilled over into the first week of April.
On April 27, 2023, a user shared a video clip showing policemen pushed to the wall inside a room and being attacked by a mob. The people seen assaulting the policemen are not visible in the video.
The video was shared with a caption in Hindi, which reads: “People of Bengal, all of you come together and bring the BJP government in Bengal in the coming elections and make Bengal fear-free and riot-free. See how policemen are being beaten up in a state, you really need BJP here. #RamNavamiViolence (translated to English).” The tweet has 11,800 views and nearly 70 retweets.
However, Logically Facts found that this video is not related to Ram Navami violence in West Bengal as claimed in the tweet, and has been shared with a false claim.
In Fact
The video seems to have been captured on a phone camera. We conducted a search on Twitter and found that this video was shared by leaders of the ruling party the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), as well as by journalists. The video showed a mob beating up policemen at Kaliyaganj police station on April 25. 2023. Two weeks after the Ram Navami violence, parts of the state also saw protests over the death of a teenager in Kaliyaganj in West Bengal’s Uttar Dinajpur district on April 21, 2023.
A Google search about a mob attacking policemen in Kaliyaganj led us to a report by India Today. It shared the video on their website with the title “Angry over minor girl's death, mob beats cops inside police station in Bengal's Kaliaganj | Video (sic).” The video is the same as the one going viral with a misleading claim.
According to a report by NDTV, this incident took place on April 25, four days after the death of a teenager in Kaliyaganj. On April 21, the body of a 17-year-old girl was found floating in a canal in Kaliyaganj. Locals residents alleged that she was raped and murdered, and staged protests blocking roads and burning tires.
On April 25, the people in Kaliyaganj organized a protest against the local police for alleged inaction in the case. Later in the day, the protesters attacked a local police station, assaulted cops, and set the station on fire. The report added that 15 policemen were injured in this incident, and two of them sustained serious injuries. On April 26, 32 people were arrested in connection with the attack, the report by NDTV added.
The Verdict
A video of a mob attacking policemen in Kaliyaganj, West Bengal in end-April is being circulated as violence around the festival of Ram Navami in the end of March and beginning of April. The caption also calls for people to vote against the current state dispension to prevent such violence. Since the attack on the police station occured in the same state, but was linked to a different incident, we mark this claim misleading.