Fact-Check: Video From Anti-CAA Protest in West Bengal Shared With a False Claim

The claim states that Muslims vandalised the railway station as the train horn disrupted their namaz.

The claim states that Muslims in West Bengal destroyed the railway station and the railway track as the train's horn disturbed their prayer.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Two videos showing a mob vandalising a railway station in West Bengal is being shared on social media with a claim that the group went violent because a 'train horn disturbed their prayers'.

However, we found out that both the videos date back to 2019's anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protest and are from the Naopara Mahishasura railway station in the Murshidabad district of West Bengal.

CLAIM

One of the captions of the viral video said, "Mahishashur raillway station in Murshidabad, Bengal being destroyed. Reason: The sound of the train whistle is disturbing their Namaaz. We can see the future of India. #BengalModel (sic)."

An archived version of the post can be seen here.

Another video, which shows people removing train tracks, is viral with the sam claim.

An archived version of the post can be seen here.

Archived versions of similar posts can be seen here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The Quint also received queries about both the videos on its WhatsApp tipline.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We found that both the videos are old and show protests against the Citizenship Amendment Bill (which is an Act now) in West Bengal.

VIDEO 1

In the 1:49 minute-long video, we can see the location's name as 'Naopara Mahishasur' written on a wall. The station comes under Murshidabad district of West Bengal.

Naopara Mahishasur railway station's name can be seen in the video. 

We then fragmented the video into multiple keyframes using InVID Google Chrome extension and followed it up with a reverse image search. This led us to a Facebook post from 2019 which carried similar videos from different angles.

This old post included multiple videos showing vandalisation at Naopara Mahishasura railway station and mentioned the reason of the violence to be anti-CAB protests.

On comparing the 2019 video with the viral video, we can notice the same man in a blue shirt vandalising the railway station.

Same person can be noticed in the viral video and the 2019 videos.

We found another YouTube video from 14 December 2019 of the same event, which was titled 'Protest procession against CAB and NRC at Naopara Mahishasur station in Sagardighi'.

We could notice another similarities between this video and the viral video.

Same person can be noticed in the viral video and the 2019 videos.

We performed a keyword search using 'Naopara Mahishasura railway station anti-CAA protest' in Bengali and found an article from Bartaman Patrika dated 15 December 2019.

The article talks about the anti-CAA protests in West Bengal. 

The article mentioned that people gathered to protest against the issue of citizenship at Nimatita station, Poradanga station, Naopara Mahishasur station and started vandalising it in the morning.

VIDEO 2

On conducting a keyword search on Google using 'Railway track removed at Naopara Mahishasur station' in Bengali, we came across a YouTube video posted by a local Bengali news channel named NTVWB news.

This video, uploaded on 14 December 2019, carries the same visuals as the viral video, proving that the incident is old and not related to the claim.

The title of the YouTube video read 'The railway line was removed at Naopara Mahishasur station' in Bengali.

Here, too, we could notice similarities between the viral video and the YouTube video from 2019.

Same still from two different videos. 

During the anti-CAA protests in West Bengal in December 2019, railway properties were hit the hardest and almost 650 trains were cancelled.

Evidently, the videos showing people vandalising the railway station and the removing the tracks are not related to the claims that the Muslims got agitated when the train horn disturbed their namaz as both the videos date back to 2019's anti-CAA protests in West Bengal.

(Update: The story has been updated to add another video which is circulating with the same claim.)

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