Image Of Bangladesh Housing Project Shared As West Bengal Scheme

An image of a housing project for slum dwellers in Bangladesh's Cox Bazar is viral with false claims that it shows rehabilitation glimpses of the 'Amar Bari' (My Home) scheme from Kolkata, West Bengal.

The graphic shows an image of the housing complex with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's image and text written in favour of the Trinamool Congress party. The text on the photo in Bangla reads, "Really? Is that the reality? The slum dwellers of Golf Green got keys to the flats in Didi's housing project. Flat for slum dwellers - Although it seems like a dream, Mamata has made it a reality." (Original text in Bangla: সত্যি? এমনটাও বাস্তবে হয়? দিদির আমার বাড়ি প্রকল্পে ফ্ল্যাটের চাবি পেলেন গল্ফ গ্রীনের বস্তিবাসীরা ; বস্তিবাসীদের জন্য ফ্ল্যাট বিষয়টা স্বপ্ন মনে হলেও বাস্তবে সত্যি করেছে মমতা")

The Amar Bari project was launched in 2013 by the West Bengal government. The project provided assistance to the poor to build houses. Under this scheme, a person is given a house with a room, a kitchen and a toilet. Reports on other various housing schemes can be found in the All India Trinamool Congress' website.

The graphic is doing the rounds on Facebook with the caption , "Didi's government is a government to fulfill the dreams of the poor and middle class - not a puppet of corporates like BJP" (Original text: দিদির সরকার গরিব মধ্যবিত্তের স্বপ্ন পূরণ করার সরকার - বিজেপির মত কর্পোরেটদের দালাল নয়)

Archive of such posts can be seen here and here.

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Fact Check

BOOM cropped the image of the housing complex and ran a reverse image search on the photo; we were led to a news report from July 23, 2020 on Bangladesh's news portal, Bangla Tribune with the same photo.

A comparison between the viral image claiming it to be from Bengal and the original image of the housing complex in Bangladesh's Cox Bazar city can be seen below.

According to the report, the image of the housing complex belongs to a housing project under the "Sheikh Hasina Ashrayon Prakalpa" initiated by the Bangladesh government in Cox Bazar city. The flats were constructed for refugees who lost their land in the sea waters of Kutubdia and Maheshkhali in 1991. After losing their livelihood and property, they came to Cox's Bazar and settled in the slums, from which they were evicted again due to the expansion of the airport.

We found similar news reports carrying a number of images of the housing complex built as a part of the housing project by the Bangladesh government for slum dwellers. According to a report by Bangladesh news website, Jugantor on July 23, 2020, 600 slum dwellers were given keys to the flats in the housing scheme.

BOOM also geo-located the housing complex on Google Maps and found several images of the Cox's Bazar housing complex, called Khurushkul Shelter Project. The images match with the housing complex shown in the viral post.

Additionally, we could not independently verify news about slum dwellers being rehabilitated to flats in Kolkata's Golf Green area.

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