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| - Fact Check: Social media gives 'Rohingya' angle to attack on BJP leaders in Bengal
With months to go for elections in West Bengal, a video of a mob attack is circulating on social media with the claim that it shows Hindus in the state being thrashed by Rohingyas. Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh can also be seen in the video.
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India Today Fact Check
The video is from 2017, when Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh and other party workers were attacked by members of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha in Darjeeling.
With months to go for elections in West Bengal, a video of a mob attack is circulating on social media with the claim that it shows Hindus in the state being thrashed by Rohingyas. Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh can also be seen in the video.
The caption in Hindi along with one such video translates to, “Look at the condition n of Hindus in West Bengal. Rohingyas there do not let a Hindu pass by or even campaign in their localities. This is why NRC is required and these tenants must move out.”
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be misleading. This is a 2017 video of Dilip Ghosh and other BJP workers being attacked by members of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) in Darjeeling.
The archived versions of similar posts can be seen here, here and here.
AFWA probe
With the help of appropriate keywords, we found that the video is from 2017 when GJM activists attacked Dilip Ghosh and other state BJP leaders who went to Darjeeling to attend a ‘Vijaya Samellani’ programme.
We found visuals similar to the video clips in questions uploaded on the YouTube channel of Assamese news channel “Pratidin Time”. The title of the video says, “Enraged Gorkhas thrash BJP leaders in Darjeeling”.
Here is a screen grab comparison of the viral video and video uploaded by “Pratidin Time”.
We also found similar visuals in video reports by ABP News and Republic World, confirming that the men who attacked the BJP leaders were activists of GJM and not Rohingyas.
According to a report by Hindustan Times, BJP workers accompanying Ghosh and state BJP leader Jay Prakash Majumdar were attacked by members of the Benoy Tamang faction of GJM on the evening of October 5, 2017, at Darjeeling.
As per some news reports, the assault was carried out as Ghosh had called Tamang a ‘traitor’. It was just a few days back that the GJM withdrew its 104-day strike in demand for a separate Gorkhaland state.
In March 2019, weeks before the general election, the same video went viral as BJP leaders being thrashed by public when they went to seek votes. Independent fact-checkers had then debunked the claim.
Hence, it is clear that the video in question shows a 2017 incident when some BJP leaders were attacked by activists of a political party and not by Rohingyas.
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