BJP Bengal Leaders Share Photo Of Injured CISF Jawan With Fake Claim

A disturbing image of an injured sub inspector attacked by a langur in Jharkhand's Dhanbad has surfaced with false claims that it shows one of the Central Industrial Security Force personnel injured during the poll related violence in West Bengal's Cooch Behar on April 10, 2021.

The image shows a side profile of a CISF jawan with his mouth mauled after the attack.

BOOM reached out to the CISF headquarters in Dhanbad who confirmed that the image is of an incident which occurred in Bagmara area of Dhanbad on April 9 when assistant sub-inspector SP Sharma was injured by a langur.

The photograph has been tweeted by several verified handles including Mamata Banerjee's erstwhile aide turned rival, Suvendu Adhikari, who contested from the Nandigram constituency on a BJP ticket. Click here for Adhikari's archived tweet.

The tweet has been captioned as, "During the fourth phase of voting in Cooch Behar's Shitalkuchi, CISF jawans were attacked by TMC's goons. They tried to snatch the guns from the jawans. One jawan was grievously injured in the incident. So the central forces were forced to fire for self defence."

(Original text in Bangla: চতুর্থ দফার ভোটের দিন কোচবিহারের শীতলকুচি-তে @CISFHQrs সিআইএসএফ জওয়ানদের উপর হামলা চালায় @AITCofficial তৃণমূল আশ্রিত দুষ্কৃতীরা। বন্দুক ছিনিয়ে নেওয়ার চেষ্টা করা হয়। গুরুতর জখম হন এক জওয়ান। তাই আত্মরক্ষার্থে গুলি চালাতে বাধ্য হয় কেন্দ্রীয় বাহিনী। )

Warning: Disturbing Image

Widespread violence marked the fourth phase (April 10) of West Bengal Elections 2021 across polling booths in the Cooch Behar district. According to reports four people died in CISF firing at poll booth number 126 in Sitalkuchi. One person was killed in a separate incident at poll booth number 285 in Sitalkuchi. Following the violence there has several contradictory claims about who initiated the attack. The TMC has also written to the Election Commission of India asking for action against the CISF personnel who opened fire at Sitalkuchi poll booth number 126.

In this backdrop, the same image of ASI SP Sharma has been shared by other BJP members including Saumitra Khan, Arjun Singh and Keya Ghosh with a caption, that it shows proof of CISF jawan injured by TMC goons in Cooch Behar's Shitalkuchi.

Below is a screenshot of member of parliament from Barrackpore (BJP) Arjun Singh's tweet

The image has also started doing the rounds on Facebook with a similar narrative. Click here for an archive of one such Facebook post.

Fact Check

BOOM ran a reverse image search on the photograph and was directed to an article by Jagran. According to the article, an assistant sub inspector of CISF was attack by langurs in Jharkhand's Dhanbad on April 9. The article has been headlined as, "सीआइएसएफ के एएसआई को लंगूरों ने किया लहूलुहान" (Translation: Langoors injured an ASI of CRPF), Click here to read the full report by Jagran.

BOOM reached out to Dhanbad headquarters of CISF who corroborated the incident. SI Pradeep Kumar from the CISF confirmed to BOOM, "The incident happened in the evening of April 9 around 6 pm. ASI SP Sharma was on duty in the BK2 Area of Bagmara - it is a coal mines area, which is also infamous for langur attacks. According to preliminary reports, the langur that attacked ASI SP Sharma has been mentally unstable." SI Pradeep Kumar further added that Sharma was rushed to the Central Hospital in Dhanbad, where he is now under treatment.