A video of an elderly man, visibly shaken and distressed, talking about being assaulted despite having a ticket, is being shared on social media.
What happens in the video?: In the video, the man says that he was assaulted by a person in a railways uniform despite having a ticket and was asked to pay extra money. The video later shows another man touching his feet to apologise.
The claim: The clip is being shared to claim that it shows an elderly man from the Muslim community being assaulted on a train in West Bengal.
How did we find out the truth?: We noticed that the video carried a logo reading 'RTv HD' on the top left corner.
Taking a cue from this, we looked for the source of the video, which led us to a verified YouTube channel for a Bangladeshi news outlet named 'Rtv News'.
Here, we found a longer version of the same video, which was published on 30 March.
This video was shared with a title in Bangla, which loosely translates to 'Passenger beaten for not paying extra money despite having train ticket | Rtv News'.
In the video, the elderly man is heard telling the reporter that while he was sitting in the train's bogey, a railway employee came and asked whether he had a ticket. Despite saying that he did, the employee assaulted him and demanded a sum of 200 taka.
What happened later?: The report later shows a railway official sitting with the elderly man.
The official told the reporter that based on the latter's request, a complaint had been filed with the railway authorities.
Further into the video, some uniformed men are seen bringing a man to the assault victim, making him apologise for his behaviour.
Some people off camera inform that old man that the he had the authorities' support and that "everyone is on uncle's side", including the TTE (Travelling Ticket Examiner), after which the elderly man hugged and forgave the person.
The uniformed men then told the reporter that the railway authorities decided to take action against the culprit by suspending him from duty.
Towards the end of the video, the reporter can be heard identifying the location of the incident as Brahmanbaria, a town in Bangladesh.
Taking this a clue, we ran another keyword search to look for more reports about the incident.
Public outrage: Using the keywords 'ট্রেনের টিকিটের অতিরিক্ত টাকা চেয়ে ব্রাহ্মণবাড়িয়ার এক ব্যক্তিকে মারধর' [Translation: Brahmanbaria man beaten train ticket extra money] led us to a Facebook post by Bangladeshi news channel NTV's verified page.
It showed a large crowd gathered at a railway station and was titled 'A passenger from Brahmanbaria was beaten up on the Mahanagar Express train'.
In the video, one of the people said that he saw a Facebook post about an elderly man being assaulted on a train and that they had gathered at the Kasba railway station to raise their voice against the incident.
The man said that the protesters had gathered to ensure justice, demanding the suspension and arrest of the employee who assaulted the man.
Another report by ITV BD said that after people gathered at Kasba railway station, the train was halted at the station for over an hour due to the people's anger.
It added that the elderly man, identified as Helal Mia, was traveling from Chittagong with a ticket, but without a reserved seat, when the employee demanded money and assaulted him.
The employee was suspended and handed over to the police, it said.
Police clarifies: The West Bengal police's Facebook page for fact-checking also dismissed the claim, stating that the incident was from Bangladesh.
Their post mentioned that the incident took place aboard the 721 Mohanagar Express in Bangladesh and that the communal claim was "entirely false and propagandistic."
Conclusion: A video of an elderly man being assaulted on a train in Bangladesh has gone viral with the false communal claim that it shows a Muslim man who was beaten to death in West Bengal.
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