Lighthouse Journalism found a video circulating widely on social media, particularly on X. The posts claimed the footage captured the moment doctors from RG Kar Hospital halted a car transporting the body of the victim in the Kolkata rape-murder case. According to the claims, if the doctors hadn’t intervened, the incident might have gone unnoticed. Some users also claimed that the woman in the video was Minakshi Mukherjee, along with DYFI activists, who confronted and stopped the Kolkata police from transporting the victim’s body. However, our investigation revealed that the video is actually from a protest by opposition parties in West Bengal on a different day, not from the day of the incident.
Claim:
X user Surajit shared the video with a misleading claim on his profile.
Check the archive version of the post.
Other users too are sharing the video with similar claims.
Investigation:
We started the investigation by uploading the video in the InVid tool and then running a reverse image on the keyframes obtained from the video.
This led us to a similar video posted by CPI (M) on X on Aug 10, 2024.
The caption mentioned: Left students and youth staged a protest at RG Kar Medical College & Hospital, demanding justice for the rape and murder of a postgraduate medical student from the institution.
We also found a YouTube short, the description said: RG Kar #আরজি_কর হাসপাতাল চত্বরে CPIM এর বিক্ষোভ । WB, India. (CPI M protest at RG Kar Hospital premises. WB, India.)
We also connected with the reporters of The Indian Express in Kolkata, who confirmed that the video features Minakshi Mukherjee of Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), but the video is from a different day while they were protesting against the incident. This video is not from the day when the unfortunate incident came to light.
We spoke to NDTV Kolkata bureau chief Saurabh Gupta who informed that CPI (M) workers as claimed in the post were not present while the incident first was reported by the media.
Conclusion: Video of a protest by CPI (M) activists at RG Kar hospital in Kolkata being shared as footage captured the moment doctors from RG Kar Hospital halted a car transporting the body of the victim in the Kolkata rape-murder case. Viral claim is misleading.
