An old image of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee with a bandaged foot is viral on Facebook with a false claim that she has been walking around despite injuring herself in Nandigram on March 10.
Banerjee, who filed her nomination in Nandigram for the upcoming elections, alleged an attack on her in Nandigram. She said that she was pushed by four or five people against her car and the door of the vehicle slammed on her, injuring her foot and head. She was rushed to SSKM hospital in Kolkata the same night. A day after Banerjee claimed suffering injuries, eyewitnesses stated that no such attack took place.
According to doctors at the SSKM Hospital in Kolkata, there were injuries to her foot, shoulder and neck and she had been given painkillers.
The caption with the image shared on Facebook takes a dig at Banerjee for staging the attack and faking her injuries. The photograph shows Mamata walking with her right foot bandaged, along with her security staff.
The caption shared with the image reads, "Z-plus security, sepoys, guards, bureaucrats, flatterers, officials, syndicate brokers, butchers ... among so many, the opposition pushed her away? People have no other work! What a screenplay! After May, Didi will be hired to write a screenplay in Tollywood. From now on, copying pictures of South will stop. And May 10 will be celebrated as "International Melodrama Day"."
(Original text in Bangla: "জেড প্লাস সিকিউরিটি, সেপাই, সান্ত্রী,আমলা, চাটুকার, মোসাহেব, সিন্ডিকেট দালাল,বাটপার.. এতজনের মাঝে বিরোধীরা ধাক্কা দিয়ে চলে গেলো? লোকের আর কাজ নেই! কি চিত্রনাট্য মাইরি!মে মাসের পর দিদিকে টলিউডে চিত্রনাট্য লেখার কাজে লাগানো হবে। এবার থেকে আর সাউথের ছবি নকল করা বন্ধ।আর ১০ই মে তারিখটাকে "আন্তর্জাতিক মেলোড্রামা দিবস" পালন করা হবে।")
Archive of the post can be seen here.
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Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search and found several Facebook and Twitter posts from November 2020 which showed the same image. Social media posts stated that the image was taken at Keoratala burning ghat in Kolkata at the funeral of veteran actor Soumitra Chatterjee.
We searched with some relevant keywords in Bangla and found the same image in a November 16, 2020 report by a Bengali news website, Mahanagar Barta. According to the report, Mamata Banerjee walked with a bandaged foot in the funeral march of Soumitra Chatterjee to perform the last rites on November 15.
News outlet, Eisamay, also reported on the incident on November 16, 2020 which states that Banerjee walked with a bandaged foot along with the late actor's daughter, Poulami Basu. The report carried an image from the same incident from a different angle.
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