Lighthouse Journalism came across a video being shared on the social media platforms, where a crowd can be seen vandalizing a railway station. It was being claimed along with the video that Mahishashur railway station, in Murshidabad, West Bengal was destroyed because the sound of the train was disturbing the Namaz. During the investigation we found the viral claim to be false. The video being shared is old from the CAA and NRC protests.
Claim:
X user Mini Razdan shared the viral video on her profile.
Check the archive version of the post here.
Other users too are sharing the video with similar claims.
Investigation:
Upon observing the video carefully we found that the video was from Naopara mahishasur station.
We started our investigation by a keyword search, which led us to a report on ANI.
The report mentioned that the video that surfaced on social media from Mahishasur Railway Station is in fact a 2019 video that showed anti-CAA, anti-NRC protestors vandalising the railway station.
We also found a video on the YouTube channel of WildFilmsIndia, titled: Young men vandalise railway station in West Bengal CAA / NRC incidents in India.
We then ran a reverse image search on the keyframes of this video and found another video uploaded on the YouTube channel of Md Ejaj Ahamed.
We also found the video of the vandalism uploaded on the Facebook profile of Riya Dey on 15th December, 2019.
We also found a local video report uploaded four years ago.
The report was titled: নওপাড়া মহিষাসুর স্টেশনে রেলে লাইন তুলে ফেলে হল
Translation: Railway line was lifted at Naopara Mahisasur station
The video earlier in the year 2022 too went viral with the same false claim.
Post from 2022: https://twitter.com/Rajendra169657/status/1519992563935363072
Conclusion: Old video of a mob vandalizing a railway station in West Bengal during the anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests, goes viral with false claims of destruction due to disturbance of railway’s sound during prayers. The video is from the year 2019. Viral claim is false.
