Fact Check: Photo from 2019 anti-CAB protest in Bengal falsely linked to 2020 farmers' protest
An image of a massive crowd gathered on the streets of Bengal reportedly to show their support for the ongoing farmers
By Newsmeter Network Published on 26 Dec 2020 12:30 PM GMT
Hyderbada: An image of a massive crowd gathered on the streets of Bengal reportedly to show their support for the ongoing farmers' protest has gone viral on social media.
Click here to view the archive and here and here for similar claims.
Fact Check:
NewsMeter performed a reverse image search and found that the claim is FALSE.
We found a tweet by West Bengal CPI(M) from 11 December 2019 which carried the same image. The caption read, "Bird's eye view of today's public meeting at Rani Rashmani Road which was organised to mark the culmination of 12 days long #WorkersLongMarch against privatisation, anti workers policies, divisive agenda of #NRC, #CAB & rampant retrenchment of the labors (sic)."
We also found a news report by a Bengali news website, Satdin, which had published the same image. According to the report, the protest rally was organised by the CPIM against the citizenship laws in December 2019.
A report by The Hindu also said that the trade unions of the Left parties organised a march against privatisation of PSUs in West Bengal in December 2019. "A 12-day long march organised by trade unions of the Left parties concluded on Wednesday in Kolkata with a massive gathering of people," it read.
Evidently, the claim is FALSE as the image is from 2019 and the farm laws were passed in September 2020. Thus, the image is not related to the ongoing farmers' protest.
