| schema:text
| - Fact Check: No, victims of Birbhum violence were not Hindu tribals
The India Today Anti-Fake News War room (AFWA) has found that no Hindu men or women were killed at Bogtui in West Bengal. All the deceased were Muslims.
Listen to Story
India Today Fact Check
No Hindu men or women were killed at Bogtui village in Bengal’s Birbhum. All the deceased were Muslims. The 8 deceased persons reportedly were Sheli Bibi (32), Tuli Khatun (7), Nurnehar Bibi (75), Rupali Bibi (44), Jahanara Bibi (38), Lili Khatun (18), Kazi Sajidur Rahman (22) and Mina Bibi (40).
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee reached out to the victims’ families on Thursday, March 24, following the violence in the Bogtui village of the state’s Birbhum district where eight people were burnt to death.
Amid this, several people on Twitter added a sectarian twist to the violence and claimed that the victims are all Hindus.
One such post said in Hindi, “Today, TMC's jihadi goons burnt alive 12 tribal Hindus, including ten Hindu women and two children in Bengal. But this barbaric terrorist act is missing from the discourse in the country. The Indian media is more concerned about the citizens of Ukraine.”
The India Today Anti-Fake News War room (AFWA) found that no Hindu men or women were killed at Bogtui. All the deceased were Muslims.
The viral posts are archived here, here and here.
AFWA probe
Several mainstream news outlets have reported details about the victims of the Bogtui incident and their families. The Telegraph published a report on March 24 that carried the survivors’ accounts.
According to this report, all the eight people who were killed were family members of Mihilal Sheikh and his elder brother Banirul Sheikh. Both brothers reportedly survived the massacre as they managed to escape in time. Mihilal recounted the events he had witnessed on Monday night to The Telegraph.
As per Mihilal, the eight deceased included Mihilal’s wife Sheli Bibi, 32, his daughter Tuli Khatun, 7, his mother Nurnehar Bibi, who was a 75-year-old widow, his elder sister Rupali Bibi, 44, his sister-in-law Jahanara Bibi, 38, his niece Lili Khatun, 18, Lili’s husband Kazi Sajidur Rahman, 22, and another sister-in-law Mina Bibi, 40.
The same names of the victims were reported by other news outlets as well.
AFWA contacted Shyam Singh, a senior IPS officer of West Bengal police, who confirmed that “all the victims in Birbhum were from the minority community,” and the viral message was “fake”.
As soon as the messages about the victims being Hindu went viral, the West Bengal Police’s official Twitter account clarified that the claim was fake.
The tweet said no Hindu women or children were killed at village Bogtui, Rampurhat, Birbhum. The Twitter account also said, “Legal action is being initiated against the persons who are trying to communalise this tragic incident through misleading posts to create social unrest in the state of West Bengal”.
pic.twitter.com/lCRVO04k7w — West Bengal Police (@WBPolice) March 23, 2022
The state government has formed a special investigation team to probe the case while the Centre has sought a report on the incident within 72 hours.
In the meantime, it is clear that social media posts claiming the victims of the Birbhum violence were Hindu tribal men and women are misleading. All eight people killed in the incident are Muslims.
Please share it on our at 73 7000 7000
You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)