An old video showing a police officer slapping and lathi-charging two men seated on the side of the road beside a Trinamool Congress (TMC) banner has surfaced with the false claim that it shows police action against TMC workers campaigning on polling day in West Bengal.
The Model Code of Conduct (MCC) is currently in force in West Bengal. Campaigning by political parties is prohibited as the state voted in the first phase on April 23.
The Claim:
The video is being shared on X with the caption, "Some peaceful workers of the Trinamool Congress are sitting on the roads near polling stations, campaigning for Trinamool. And then see what happened."
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What We Found:
1) Video dates back to 2023
We broke the video into key-frames and ran a reverse image search using Google Lens; results showed that the video dates back to 2023, and is not from the ongoing West Bengal assembly election.
The same video was posted by the Facebook page Popular Halliday ganj on July 29, 2023.
2) 2023 West Bengal panchayat election incident Taking a hint from this we ran a keyword search which showed a News 18 Bangla video report with the same video. According the footage, the incident is from the 2023 Panchayat election in Basanti, South 24 Parganas district, West Bengal.
The caption in the report when translated reads, "Panchayat Election 2023: In Basanti, allegations of bombing surfaced the night before polling. Bombs were found on the roadside on election morning, triggering panic in the area. Police were deployed to control the situation and were seen dispersing crowds, at times using lathis. Uniformed personnel were also seen beating people."
