With the eight-phase Assembly election underway in West Bengal, several unrelated images from Pakistan and Bangladesh are being shared on the internet to insinuate that the Hindus are being persecuted in the state under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
CLAIM
The aforementioned images are being shared under #StandWithBengaliHindus on Twitter with claims targeting Mamata Banerjee for her inaction in cases involving violence against the Hindu community in West Bengal. These images show mobs pelting stones, burnt houses and injured individuals.
WHAT WE FOUND
The Quint verified these images and found that contrary to the viral claims, these are NOT from West Bengal.
IMAGE 1
A reverse image search directed us to a 2013 report by UK-based publication The Daily Mail, which stated that the said image is from Bangladesh. As per the report, in May 2013, riots broke out in Bangladesh over “Islamic hardliners demanding the death penalty for blasphemy”.
Other news organisations like the Al Jazeera and The New York Times also reported on the violence.
IMAGE 2 AND IMAGE 3
We found that both these images are from Pakistan. According to a report published by Jammu Kashmir Now on 11 May 2020, the images in question are from an attack on Hindus living in Pakistan’s Sindh province.
The report also carried a tweet by lawyer and activist Rahat Austin who mentioned that the incident took place in Rahim Yar Khan in Pakistan.
In another tweet, Austin suggested that 21 houses of Hindus were burnt in Sindh.
Responding to Rahat Austin, the official account of Pakistan’s Punjab Police mentioned that a case has been registered and the accused have been arrested.
The Quint had earlier debunked these images in May 2020 when they went viral with a claim that they show Hindus being attacked in West Bengal’s Hooghly.
Clearly, old and unrelated images of violence against Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh are being shared amid 2021 West Bengal elections to falsely claim that they show atrocities against Hindus under Mamata Banerjee in Bengal.
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