“Shocking: Elderly Hindu woman brutally attacked, idol and temple desecrated by Muslims in secular Kerala. Why is Bollywood silent? #Asifa #islam”.
Serial communal rabble-rouser, Shankhnaad once again tried to polarise communities and target Kerala by spreading communally sensitive news on social media. In a second tweet he wrote “Jihadi attack on Hindus, Temple vandalism continue in Kerala during protest for Asifa. Worse fate awaits if Hindus continue with their ignorance and one-way secularism”.
There is a very high probability that any such news coming from the Shankhnaad handle is fake and has been spread with the singular objective of fanning communal tensions. Alt News has exposed Shankhnaad handle several times in the past for circulating fake news. Let us find out more about this story.
The same was also shared by a parody handle @BhaiyyaBabu, which uses a profile picture of Bharatiya Janata Party MP Paresh Rawal with a similar text in Hindi, “केरल में एक हिन्दू महिला को पूजा करने की वजह से मारा गया और बेइज्ज़त किया गया ,मूर्ति तोड़ दिया शांतिदूतों ने। ज्यादा से ज्यादा शेयर करो ताकी पीड़ित महीला को इंसाफ मिल सके. #HinduDeniedEquality“.
The image circulated by these handles is six months old and was shared by a Bangladeshi Facebook page called Suptodisha in October 2017. According to the following Facebook post, the incident happened in Chittagong district in Bangladesh.
The Bengali text accompanying the Facebook post can be translated as follows:
“This woman is Panchabala Karmakar, resident of Jaldhi village, under Banskhali Police Station of Chittagong district. This poor and helpless woman was beaten up badly in a pre-planned attack by his influential neighbour Pradip Ghosh and his son Biswajit. Her situation is now precarious. There is now no one to take care of her or treat her. Kindly share this.”
One of the individuals in the images above is wearing a T-shirt with Bengali text on it. Alt News has contacted Kerala police to get a clarification on this issue and we will update the story once we hear back from them.
While the exact origin of the images is yet to be ascertained, it can be stated with certainty that these images are not representative of any present incident. Furthermore, the Bengali text on the t-shirt is an indicator that the incident may not be from Kerala.
Both Shankhnaad and BhaiyyaBabu deleted their tweets after Twitter users called off their bluff and tagged Kerala police to take action against them for inciting communal tension.
The damage, however, is already done and the fake news shared by them has spread on Facebook and WhatsApp. This was also shared on a group called “We Support Narendra Modi” which has over 26 lakh members and the post was shared more than 2,500 times.
Even though the Shankhnaad handle is well-known on Twitter as a serial faker, there are many unsuspecting users particularly on WhatsApp who may fall for the lies peddled by this handle. It is high time authorities take action against such known peddlers of fake news who routinely scan social media for images such as this one of the injured woman and spin a false story around it.
(This article was originally published on Alt News, and has been republished here with permission.)
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