Morphed Photo From Journalists’ Rally Shared as Anti-BJP Protest
We found that the image was from a 2018 rally organised by journalists in West Bengal against the TMC government.
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The photo of a person holding a poster with an anti-BJP slogan written on it has gone viral with a claim that it shows a recent protest against the party.
This comes ahead of major Assembly elections that are scheduled to be held in the country, including those in the states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Assam.
However, we found that the image was from a 2018 rally organised by journalists in West Bengal against the attacks on scribes.
CLAIM
The image was shared with a caption that said, “No vote to BJP”.
The caption refers to the campaign, “No Vote to BJP”, launched by a forum called “Bengal against Fascist RSS-BJP”. The forum has also set up social media pages on Facebook and Instagram with the same name as the campaign.
The text on the poster said, “No More HATHRAS! NO VOTE TO BJP! #NoVoteToBJP”.
Hathras, in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, has been in the news lately after the alleged molesters of a woman in the district were accused of shooting dead her father. Earlier in 2020, the alleged gangrape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit girl was also from the same place.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We conducted a reverse image search of the photo and found the original picture on the stock images website, called Alamy.
The image was uploaded on 11 April 2018 and the caption said, “A woman seen holding a placard during the protest. Hundreds of journalists protest against the ruling party’s alleged attack on journalists across Bengal during Panchayat nomination coverage. The rally started at Mayo Road Mahatma Gandhi Statue and culminated at Dorina Crossing in Kolkata. Wearing black bands on arms and covering their mouths with black scarfs, hundreds of city's journalists, cameramen, and photojournalists took part in the protest rally.”
The original image from the protest said “Shut Camera” on the poster. We looked up more photos from the event on Alamy and found another photograph that showed the same lady with the same poster.
The protest was in solidarity with a photojournalist, Biplab Mondal, who was stripped and beaten in Kolkata while covering nominations for the panchayat polls in the state on 9 April 2018.
On 11 April, several journalists in Kolkata took out a protest march to condemn the incident.
Evidently, an image from a 2018 protest in Kolkata against an attack on journalists was edited to falsely claim that it showed a recent anti-BJP protest ahead of the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections.
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