Fact Check: Horrific video of teenager being killed is from Brazil, not West Bengal
A video of a group of men killing a young boy is being shared with the claim that the incident took place in West Bengal.
By Tejal Sinha Published on 1 Aug 2021 7:21 AM GMT
Hyderabad: A video of a group of men killing a young boy is being shared with the claim that the incident took place in West Bengal.
According to social media users, the wife of Uttam Ghosh from West Bengal, while giving an interview to Dainik Bhaskar, said the Trinamul Congress (TMC) people had dragged her husband from the house and asked him to say "Jai Shri Ram". They asked "Where are your BJP people? Where are your Hindus?" and killed the unarmed man, his wife reportedly alleged.
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Fact Check
The claim is false.
NewsMeter found that the video had aired on Zee News in 2018. It had said the video is from UP.
The teenager in the video is not BJP worker Uttam Ghosh. However, it is to be noted that Ghosh was killed on 2 May 2021.
NewsMeter performed a Google reverse image search by taking a screenshot of the viral video. The search further directed us to Reddit that had posted a similar video titled "Gay rapist gets chopped alive in brazil".
France 24, a French website, had earlier debunked the claim that the video showed the murder of a homosexual in Morocco. It said the video was rigged to make it seem like a homophobic crime. It further said the video was from Brazil.
The report stated, "Several articles on this miscellaneous fact have been published in the Brazilian media since January 5. Cited by the local press, the Brazilian civil police indicated that the victim is a 17-year-old teenager. He was killed on December 30, 2017 in Fortaleza, the capital of the northeastern state of CearĆ”. The motive for the crime remains unknown, but police suspect a settling of scores between rival gangs."
A keyword search led to reports by other French websites Monolitos Post and Jornal de Brasilia.
According to the report by Monolitos Post published on 10 January 2018 titled "Civil police arrests accused of killing a teenager with stones and axes on New Year's Eve", the civil police of the state of CearĆ” said Wesley Tiago de Sousa Carvalho, 17, was killed by blows from axes, hoes, and stones on 30 December at Praia do Futuro in Fortaleza. Two suspects were arrested and the others involved were identified. According to investigations, the teenager was killed in a dispute between members of rival groups.
Meanwhile, the report by Jornal de Brasilia titled "Teenager murdered with an axe by other young people" stated that a 17-year-old was murdered with an axe in Praia do Futuro in Fortaleza. Images of the brutal murder of Wesley Tiago de Sousa Carvalho were circulated on social networks and showed the coldness of his tormentors, it added.
A series of hypotheses about the motivation for the murder was raised, including that it was a homophobic crime. However, the civil police of CearĆ” ruled out the possibility, reported the newspaper, since the victim was not LGBT.
Since the claim mentioned Uttam Ghosh's wife giving an interview to Dainik Bhaskar, we tried to search for any such interview. We found a report by Dainik Bhaskar that had debunked the viral claim.
Dainik Bhaskar had refuted the claim being made in the video and said it had not interviewed Ghosh's wife.
It is evident that the claim made through the viral post is false. The viral video is not from West Bengal but Brazil. The video is old and has been doing the rounds since 2018 with different claims. It is now being falsely being linked to the death of BJP worker Uttam Ghosh.
