A disturbing video recorded after a college student from West Bengal's Alipurduar district was violently attacked by her classmate, is circulating on social media with a false and communal claim that a Hindu girl was attacked by a Muslim boy.
BOOM spoke to local police who confirmed both the victim and assailant are Muslims.
The viral video shows a young woman weeping and narrating the incident to someone, whom she addresses as 'uncle'. The woman can be seen bleeding from her neck and face. She can be heard saying that she was slashed with a blade.
Several right-wing Twitter handles have falsely claimed that the incident in the video is another instance of 'love-jihad.'
A Twitter user named 'JatayuOSINT' tweeted the video with the caption claiming the girl is a Hindu, "H girl attacked with sharp blade yesterday afternoon in Kochbihar, Falakata, West Bengal by MD Fayaz Ahmed. Fayaz attacked her in front of Alipur Doar College." (sic.)
Click here to see the video and here for an archived link.
(Note: The video is disturbing in nature)
A collage of the screenshot of the video and an image of the attacker was tweeted by verified handles including Kreately Media and Arun Pudur, with the same 'Love Jihad' claim.
Pudur captioned the collage as, "West Bengal: Md. Fayez Ahmad attacked Hindu girl with sharp blade when she found out his real name and rejected him."
BOOM has earlier fact checked both handles for spreading fake news. Read here and here.
Viral on Facebook
Several Facebook user also shared Kreately's post.
Fact Check
BOOM ran a keyword search on Google and found that the attack of the student of Falakata College was reported by various regional news outlets including The Telegraph.
According to the The Telegraph report on November 30, 2021, a second-year college student in Alipurduar district was attacked and slashed severely with a blade by one of her batch-mates after she refused his advances. The Telegraph quoted Bholanath Pandey, SP, Alipurduar, as saying that the youth has been identified as Fazaddin Hossain from Ghokshadanga, Coochbehar. Hossain confessed that since his proposal was rejected by the girl, he was prompted to attack her.
The same incident was also reported on Anandabazar Patrika. The news reports however did not state any communal angle to the incident.
Taking cue from this, BOOM reached out to Sanatan Singha, IC, Falakata Police Station, who told us that both the woman and the attacker are Muslims and second year students of Falakata College. "There is no communal overtone to the incident. Both the man and the woman are Muslims. The woman's name is Aliana Khatun, a second year student, who was attacked by Faijuddin Mohammed. We are aware of the communal claim that was spread on social media since the incident happened."
After the attack, the woman was hospitalised at a Falakata hospital and received multiple stitches.
Additionally, BOOM reached out to Hirendranath Bhattacharjee, principal of Falakata College, Alipurduar, who corroborated the same. "Both the victim and assaulter are Muslims. I would request people not to spread communal overtones with the incident."
(Additional reporting by Swasti Chatterjee)
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