The Post-poll violence in West Bengal is attracting a lot of attention after the results were declared on 2nd May. Eversince several cases of barbarity has been making its way to breaking news. Amid this a video from BJP has flared up the situation, which was shown in the press conference addressed by BJP National President JP Nadda in Kolkata. The same video was also shared separately on the Facebook page of BJP West Bengal. At around 2:16 timestamp of the video shared on the Facebook page of BJP West Bengal, an image of a man occurs claiming that the man is Manik Moitro, who died in Sitalkuchi in the post-poll violence. According to news reports, Moitra was shot dead by unknown assailants in the morning of May 3, a day after Trinamool Congress landslide victory in the state. Moitra’s local assembly constituency of Sitalkuchi, however, was won by BJP candidate Barenchandra Barman.
Meanwhile, Abhro Banerjee, an India Today journalist, whose image was used as Manik Moitra, a slain BJP worker from Sitalkuchi in Cooch Behar district of West Bengal later took to social media to state that he was not Manik Moitra, as claimed by the caption in the video, and clarified that he was alive and safe. On May 5, BJP Bengal posted the video on its verified Facebook and Twitter handles, where it claimed to show a compilation of incidents of violence by TMC supporters on BJP workers across the state. The video contained an image of Banerjee, but with a text caption claiming that he is Manik Moitra from Sitalkuchi.
Banerjee later posted on his social media account that he is alright and dismissed the viral claim. He tweeted, “I am Abhro Banerjee, living and hale and hearty and around 1,300 km away from Sitalkuchi. BJP IT Cell is now claiming I am Manik Moitra and died in Sitalkuchi. Please don’t believe these fake posts and please don’t worry. I repeat: I am (still) alive.” Banerjee also shared the same post on Facebook, along with the downloaded video that was shared by BJP West Bengal. Soon after Banerjee’s posts went viral, BJP Bengal took down the video from both Twitter and Facebook. It later put out a tweet, stating that Banerjee’s image was used erroneously “while using an article by him as a source for the content”.
In an interview with India Today Banerjee said, “I woke up a little late this morning and saw over 100 missed calls. Even before I could check what happened, my friend, Arvind, told me that the BJP IT cell has used my picture in place of Manik Moitra, who had allegedly died in Sitalkuchi. I was shocked as I am 1400 kms away and the kind of misinformation can be quite damaging.” According to India Today, the photograph used with the name ‘Manik Moitra’ was picked up from the author page of Abhro Banerjee on the IndiaToday.in site, and that he’s in Delhi.
Though, on 3rd May, ABP News reported about the death of Manik Moitro, a BJP supporter from Sitalkuchi, in post-poll violence, but the man in the video was neither Manik Moitro nor dead. Thus, the video was morphed and caused chaos by the party to provoke public sentiment and draw attention towards the post-poll violence and to defame the AITC government which won the Bengal election for the third consecutive time.
