Old Video of Fire at Kolkata’s Railway Station Shared as Mira Road Station

The Western Railways clarified on X (formerly Twitter) that the claim was fake.

Fact-Check: These visuals are from Kolkata's Santoshpur railway station and not Mira Road.

(Source: Altered by The Quint)

A video of a railway station platform on fire is being shared as visuals of the Mira Road Railway Station in Maharashtra's Thane district.

What happened at Mira Road?: Communal violence broke out in the Mira Road area, a night before the inauguration of Ayodhya's Ram Temple on 22 January.

• On 21 January, tensions flared when a procession for the inauguration of the Ram Mandir was reportedly attacked in the Naya Nagar area.

• Allegedly, both the police and residents of the Muslim-majority neighbourhood objected to the procession passing through their area, reported The Quint.

• The atmosphere in Mira Road was still tense as the Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation (MBMC) tore down fifteen shops at Haidary Chowk in the Naya Nagar area, claiming they were illegally occupying the space. These events unfolded following clashes on Sunday night

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(Source: X/Screenshot) 

This post recorded 351.8K views at the time of writing this story. (Archives of similar claims can be found here, here and here.)

Are the visuals from Mira Road?: The claim is false.

• The visuals are from April 2023 and show Kolkata's Santoshpur railway station. A fire broke out at platform two of the station.

• The Western Railways refuted this claim and called it "fake news."

How did we find out?: We divided the viral video into multiple keyframes and ran a Google reverse image search on some of them.

• We came across a video on YouTube by the Bengali-language newspaper Sangbad Pratidin, which was uploaded on 6 April 2023.

• We compared the visuals in both videos and found similarities.

Here are the similarities between the two. 

(Source: Altered by The Quint) 

• Apart from Sangbad Pratidin, news organisations such as India Today, News18 Bangla and Times Now also covered the fire breakout at Kolkata's Santoshpur station.

• The event occurred on platform two, where a fire quickly engulfed all the nearby shops surrounding the station's platform two. The station runs along the Bajaj-Sealdah route, reported India Today on 6 April 2023.

Western Railways Dismisses Claim: We found Western Railways reply under a viral claim. The department called the claim "fake news."

• Taking to their official X account on 24 January, they said the situation at the Mira Road station was normal. They also posted a video of the station to verify that there were no signs of fire.

Conclusion: A video of a fire breaking out at Kolkata's Santoshpur railway station is being falsely shared as visuals from Thane's Mira Road station.

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