A video showing an injured young girl talking on the phone in Bengali is being shared by giving it a false communal colour.
The claim along with which the video is going viral states that a Hindu girl was attacked by a Muslim youth.
However, we found that both the accused and the attacker belonged to the same community. We reached out to a local journalist, who covered the incident and found that the incident was not communal in nature and that the boy attacked the girl because she rejected his advances.
CLAIM
A Twitter handle called "@JatayuOSINT", which has over 12,000 followers, shared the video on 30 November with a caption that read, "H girl attacked with sharp blade yesterday afternoon in Kochbihar, Falakata, West Bengal by MD Fayaz Ahmed. Fayaz attacked her in front of Alipur Doar College."
'H' and 'M' are often used to refer to people from Hindu and Muslim community respectively.
[TRIGGER WARNING: The visuals may be disturbing. Viewer discretion advised.]
(An archive of the post can be found here.)
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
Another Facebook page called 'Hindu Warriors,' which is followed by over 9,000 people, also shared the video with the same claim.
We also found that the video was being shared on Telegram.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We conducted a keyword search for the case and found news reports published in national dailies as well as local news publications.
A report in The Telegraph identified the accused as Fajaddin Hossain and said that the boy attacked and slashed one of his batchmates with a blade because she refused his advances.
The report included a statement by the Alipurduar Superintendent of Police, Bholanath Pandey, who said that the accused was arrested the same day and confessed that his act was prompted by the girl's refusal.
We found another report published in the Bengali language daily, Anandabazar Patrika, which also had the same details as The Telegraph story. It included quotes from the victim, who said that the accused had been harassing her for a while.
We then contacted a local journalist who shared details of the First Information Report (FIR) with us, which identified the victim as 20-year-old Alina Yasmeen, daughter Ainul Haque.
"29.11.21 at about 13:30 hours one Fajaddin Hossain s/o Babuddin of Baro Solmari PS Ghoksadanga District-Cooch Behar attacked one Alina Yasmeen (20) d/o Ainul Haque of Dulal Dokan PS-Falakata with a sharp cutting weapon (Blade). The incident took place at Dhupguri More college road following a failed love affair between the two," the FIR read.
We also accessed a video of the girl wherein she identified herself as Alina Yasmeen and said that the accused, Fajaddin had been pursuing her since the past six months. She added that both her parents and the family of the accused knew about Fajaddin's advances.
We also reached out to the Falakata police, and a senior police officer confirmed that the accused and the victim belonged to the same community.
"She is a Muslim girl and her name is Alina. Both the accused and the victim knew each other. He had slashed her on three places with a blade when she refused to talk to him in the college. The accused has been arrested and charge sheet will soon be filed," he told us.
Evidently, an attack by a spurned lover in West Bengal was given a false communal colour.
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