Dated Photos Of BJP Workers Clashing With UP Police Go Viral As Bengal

A set of images is being shared on Facebook with the claim that it shows instances from the recent mob attack on West Bengal police during the COVID-19 lockdown at Howrah.

The claim is false; the photos are from June 2014, when Bharatiya Janata Party activists clashed with Uttar Pradesh police in front of the UP Assembly, while protesting against rising crimes in the state.

BOOM spotted a post on Facebook by a user who shared the images with the caption: "Jai Hind, Jai bangla. Look at this. Howra Tikiapara. The picture speaks for itself - who's breaking lockdown to beat the police (translated from Bengali)." One of the images showed a person wearing a t-shirt with an image of Narendra Modi.

The post is being shared in the backdrop of a mob attack on West Bengal police, that took place on April 28 when the cops tried to enforce lockdown in Howrah, which has been identified as a red zone for COVID-19.

Fact Check

BOOM ran a reverse image search on the photos, and came across a news report by The Telegraph from July 1, 2014, which carried one of the images. According to the caption, the image showed a BJP worker fight with a policeman during violent protests by the BJP against Akhilesh Yadav's government on June 30, 2014, for rising crime rates in the state.

While the article did not carry the other image in the viral post, we found it being shared on image sharing website Imgur on July 2, 2014 - 2 days after the clash took place at the UP Assembly.

We compared the structure of the building seen in the photo with a more recent image of the UP Assembly building, and found it to be match. The date of the post and the resemblance of the venue helps us ascertain that this image is also from the clash between BJP workers and UP Police from June 2014.