New Delhi: A couple of pictures were shared on Facebook Thursday to wrongly claim that Muslim workers of Trinamool Congress vandalised the statue of Bengali polymath Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar during the violence that took place in West Bengal earlier this week.
The picture shows bearded men smashing statues and the caption reads: “It can be seen clearly in CCTV footage that Muslims of the TMC are breaking the statue of Vidyasagar. #Filthypolitics of Mamata Banerjee.”
The post has been shared over 260 times till the filing of this report, and is also doing the rounds on WhatsApp.
Fact check
The picture has nothing to do with the violence in West Bengal. The statues, shown smashed in the picture, were actually ancient artifacts of Iraq, and those breaking them were not Trinamool Congress workers, but ISIS militants.
The Guardian had put out an article regarding the incident in 2015 and used the same picture that has now gone viral.
Another difference is the fact that it was only a bust of Vidyadsagar that was smashed in the violence, but the picture shows multiple statues being vandalised.
The post comes in the aftermath of the violence during BJP president Amit Shah’s rally in Kolkata. Clashes broke out between BJP and Trinamool Congress supporters, during which the bust of Vidyasagar was vandalised, leading to ugly blame game between both sides.
Kolkata will vote Sunday in the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
In collaboration with SM HoaxSlayer
Also read: Vidyasagar statue vandalism in Bengal isn’t just about ideology. It’s a TMC-BJP power war