Bengali news portal eisamay.com cited an old tweet by Amitabh Bachchan to claim the actor spoke about Delhi Police's crackdown on Jamia Millia Islamia University students during recent protests.
The news portal, in a now deleted article, referred to a 2012 tweet by the actor which was actually about police excesses on demonstrators who were protesting against the gang rape and murder of a paramedic student (Nirbhaya) in Delhi.
The article, titled, "Pained and afraid. Big B raises his voice for the students now" quoted senior Bachchan's tweet and stated that he has finally 'spoken on behalf of the students.'
(Original headline in Bengali: 'ব্যথিত এবং সন্ত্রশ্ত!' পড়ুয়াদের পক্ষে এবার গর্জে উঠলেন বিগ বি)
Click here to access the archived version of the article.
An excerpt from the article read, "Showing solidarity with the students, Amitabh tweeted, 'Pained and horrified to see what unfolds in Delhi .. peaceful protest being met with tear gas and water canons.'
(Original text in Bengali: ছাত্র-ছাত্রীদের পাশে দাঁড়িয়ে অমিতাভ ট্যুইটে লিখলেন, 'দিল্লিতে যা ঘটল তার জন্য সত্যিই আমি ব্যথিত, ভীত এবং সন্ত্রশ্ত। শান্তিপূর্ণ ভাবে প্রতিবাদের জবাব দেওয়া হল কাঁদানে গ্যাস আর জল কামান ছুঁড়ে!')
Furthermore, multiple Facebook posts lauded Bachchan for voicing his opinion citing screenshots of the eisamay.com article. The post comes at a time when top actors of the Hindi film industry have been facing flak for not speaking up on the police's handling of recent protests at two universities - Jamia Milia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University.
The posts have been captioned as, "Pained and terrorised. Big B raises his voice for the students now." (Original headline in Bengali: 'ব্যথিত এবং সন্ত্রশ্ত!' পড়ুয়াদের পক্ষে এবার গর্জে উঠলেন বিগ বি). The posts have also used a screenshot of the Bengali article, with the same headline.
Protesting students of the Jamia Millia Islamia university and Aligarh Muslim University faced a brutal police crack down on December 15 for staging demonstrations against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Several students faced serious injuries following the attack by Delhi Police.
Facebook posts also included the now deleted Bengali news portal eisamay.com article to claim that Bachchan was "pained and terrorised," to see students being tortured.
Below is Bachchan's tweet where he expressed anguish about police cracking down on protesters who were demonstrating in the capital against the Delhi gang rape that shook the nation.
It was revived by some Twitter users who took a dig at the actor for not taking a stand on the current protests.
BOOM was able to ascertain that Amitabh Bachchan did not express his views on the Jamia Millia Islamia incident as he did not update his social media accounts on the same.
