Old Video From Switzerland Shared As Kolkata With False Communal Spin

An old video of rioters vandalising cars on a road in Switzerland after a club-level football match is being shared with a false claim that it shows a communal attack in Kolkata, West Bengal.

The video, shot at night, shows a riotous mob wearing hoodies and white protective suits heading towards cars as the vehicles try to escape the violent attack that follows.

The caption with the video in Hindi translates to, "It is being said that the video is from Kolkata. The situation in Bengal remains exactly like Pakistan, and those who are breaking the windows of vehicles, are heretics. No one even known that Hindus have became a minority in 8 states in 70 years. Now you have to think otherwise .........?????????"

(Original Text in Hindi: वीडियो कलकत्ता का बताया जा रहा है बंगाल में हालात एकदम पाकिस्तान जैसे बने हुए हैं, और ये जो गाड़ियों के शीशे तोड़ रहे हैं वो विधर्मी हैं। 70वर्षो में हिन्दू 8 राज्यों में अल्पसंख्यक हो गये किसी को पता भी नहीं चला, अब सोचना पड़ेगा नहीं तो.........?????????)

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Fact Check

BOOM found that the claim with the video is false. The video is about four years old and the incident happened in Switzerland.

We broke the video into several keyframes and performed relevant keyword search to find out details about the video. The search led us to a report published on a website named 20 Min on May 22, 2018 carrying the same video which is being shared as Kolkata incident.

According to the German report, there was a mass brawl involving around 90 hooligans present not far from the St. Jakob Stadium on late Saturday evening. Around 30 people from Basel, who were wearing white protective suits and were painting bridge pillars on the Autobahn on Birsstrasse, were attacked after 11 p.m. by a mob of around 60 people.

Some people in the black jeep present on the north of the stadium also tried to get the driver out of the car, but he managed to turn around and escape. The video of the mob lynching went viral online.

During the investigation, we found that several German local news websites had covered the incident. According to reports, the violent clashes erupted on May 19, 2018 after a championship match between Basel and Lucerne football clubs near a stadium in Birstrasse, Basel, Switzerland.

The reports stated that local police arrested 14 people in connection with the clash. About 90 people could be involved with this incident. The police was also looking for eyewitnesses who shot the incident on their phones.

Taking a cue from this, we searched on YouTube and found several videos which show exactly the same scenes compared to the viral video. The title of the video uploaded on a YouTube channel named Hooligans TV on May 21, 2018 is, "Fight in Switzerland: Basel vs. Zürich & Karlsruhe. 19.05.2018".

The videos of May, 2018 incident can be seen here and here on YouTube.

BOOM had debunked the video in 2018 when it went viral with a different false claim.

Also Read: Video Of Violent Clash Caught On CCTV Shared With False, Communal Claims