A video is going viral on social media in which a mob can be seen carrying out a brutal attack on several people with sticks and rods. A Muslim woman wearing a burqa is also visible in the viral video. Users sharing the video are claiming that a Muslim youth was attacked in West Bengal for political reasons.
A user named Drx Samim Aktar shared a video on Facebook with caption in Bengali which can be translated in English as “A young Muslim man from West Bengal has once again fallen victim to political violence. This state is no longer fit to live in.”
Meanwhile, on Instagram, many users have also shared the video claiming it is from West Bengal. One user wrote, “A Muslim person in West Bengal has once again fallen victim to political violence in India.”
Apart from this, many other users have shared this video making claims that it shows an attack on a Muslim youth in West Bengal, which can be seen here and here.
Fact Check:
During the investigation, the DFRAC team found that the viral video is not from West Bengal. It is a video of an attack that took place over a road overtaking dispute in the Washim district of Maharashtra. Our team reverse-image-searched the video keyframes using Google Lens. We found a report regarding this video uploaded on the Zee News YouTube channel, in which this incident was reported to be from Washim district.
During our investigation, we found that local journalists and media organizations in Washim also shared this video, claiming it to be an incident from Washim. According to media reports, the injured have been identified as Pravin Raut, Rajesh Raut, Prateek Raut, Ankush Sontakke, and a woman.
During our further investigation, we came across a report by Pudhari News. The report details the incident: ‘A shocking incident took place in Washim, where a group of 10 to 12 people attacked a young man and his relatives with iron rods over a minor dispute about a motorcycle taking a “cut”. One person was seriously injured in this incident, and a total of four people were hurt. A case has been registered regarding this at the Washim City Police Station. According to the information received, when Prateek Rajesh Raut was passing in front of Baheti Hospital with his mother and young son, the owner of a motorcycle garage near the District General Hospital took a “cut” from their car. When Prateek questioned him about this, he was assaulted.’
The location of the incident is mentioned as the ‘District General Hospital’. We found that a shop board named ‘Babar’ is visible in the viral video. Following this, we searched for the shop named Babar next to the District General Hospital on Google Maps. We were able to locate this shop on Google Maps. The Google Maps location can be viewed by clicking here.
In our investigation, we found that Fact News had also covered this incident, identifying it as happening in Washim. Following this, we contacted Imran, a journalist from Fact News. He informed us that this incident is not from West Bengal, but rather from Washim. He stated that the event occurred due to a dispute on the road.
Conclusion:
From the DFRAC fact check, it is clear that the claim circulating on social media about political violence involving a Muslim youth in West Bengal is misleading. The incident in the viral video is from the Washim district of Maharashtra, where a dispute took place over overtaking on a road.
