Old Images of ISIS Passed Off as TMC Destroying Vidyasagar Statue

No, TMC workers did not destroy Vidyasagar’s statue. These images are of ISIS destroying artefacts in Iraq in 2015.

CLAIM

Viral images on social media claim that the workers of All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) destroyed Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s statue in West Bengal. The images further allege that even though TMC workers destroyed the statue, people are blaming Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) for this action.

The claim along with the images reads: “CCTV फुटेज में साफ दिख रहा है विद्यासागर जी की मूर्ति को #टीएमसी के मुल्ले तोड़ रहे हैं #घटिया_राजनीती और इल्जाम BJP पर....”

(Translation: In the CCTV footage, it can be clearly seen that statue of Vidyasagar ji is being destroyed by muslims of TMC and the blame is on BJP...#dirtypolitics)

Several social media users have shared the images on Facebook and Twitter with a similar claim.

CCTV फुटेज में साफ दिख रहा है #विद्यासागर जी की मूर्ति को #टीएमसी के मुल्ले तोड़ रहे हैं #घटिया_राजनीती😠
और इल्जाम BJP पर....#ममता_बनर्जी_की_गुंडागर्दी#KolkataViolence@MamataOfficial @INCIndia @Mayawati @yadavakhilesh @dimpleyadav @ArvindKejriwal @ECISVEEP pic.twitter.com/kjFnHZFHKc

— ठाकुर साहब ( चौकीदार ) (@RajputBanna07) May 16, 2019

Posted by ठाकुर साहब on Thursday, May 16, 2019

Posted by Amarnath Verma on Thursday, May 16, 2019

TRUE OR FALSE?

The claim around the viral images is false. These pictures are not of TMC workers destroying Vidyasagar’s statue in West Bengal. Rather, they date back to 2015 and show ISIS militants destroying Assyrian artefacts in Iraq.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT?

We ran a reverse search on Yandex, a reverse image search engine that led us to an International Business Times’ report. The report claimed that one of these images was taken from a video that showed IS militants destroying Assyrian artefacts at the Mosul museum in Iraq.

A Google search using keywords ‘ISIS’, ‘artefacts’, ‘Iraq’ led us to a video posted by The Guardian in 2015.

In the video, it can be clearly seen that the viral images are of ISIS militants destroying ancient artefacts at the Mosul museum.

A video released by ISIS showed the destruction of artefacts from the Akkadian and Assyrian empires, reported The Guardian Times. The incident occureded in Mosul that had been under ISIS’s control since June 2014.

(With inputs from SMHoaxSlayer.)

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