A collage of images showing a naked woman being chased by a group of men in one and getting kicked by a man in another is doing the rounds on social media. Users have shared the image, claiming that the woman is a Hindu and BJP supporter, and the men are Congress supporters in Bengal. They are chasing her for supporting BJP in a Congress rally.
A Facebook user posted the viral picture with a caption: जाग जाओ ..वरना मोन रहकर शहन करने की आदत पाल आपकी ऐक भूल आपका खराब समय चालू कर देता है… (English translation: Wake up.. otherwise keep the habit of bearing silently, may start your worse time…)
You can check the picture here.
The text on the image translates to:
Bastard Congress. In Bengal, Congress workers chased and beat up a Hindu woman. The woman’s mistake was that she chanted pro-BJP and Modi slogans in the Congress rally… share and bring the face of Congress in front of the world.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the viral picture, and found it to be false.
Running a Reverse Image Search of the viral image, we found an image titled: raviwar.com pic – Lakshmi Oraon trying to escape molestors, dated December 27, 2008, on Flickr — an American image and video hosting website.
The image on Flickr matches exactly with the viral image and the description at the bottom informs that the name of the woman in the picture is Laxmi Oraon — a tribal woman from Guwahati in Assam. The description also contains a link giving access to an article, titled: एक फैसले का इंतजार (English Translation: waiting for a decision), dated November 24, 2008, on Raviwar — a media house based out of Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
The image in the article, too, matches the viral image and it gives detailed information about the same. The incident happened on November 24, 2007, in Beltola, Guwahati, when Laxmi was stripped naked and beaten by a mob for protesting for tribal rights.
We also came across a YoutTube video, titled: Adivasi woman stripped, beaten up in Assam, attached in a news article in Newsclick. The YouTube video contains a clip from CNN IBN news channel and it corroborates the claims made in Raviwar and Flickr.
The image at 00:27 matches the second image in the viral collage and the report informs that the man kicking Laxmi was a local shopkeeper named Ratul Burman. Laxmi was soon rescued by the locals. The then Chief Minister of Assam Tarun Gogoi had ordered immediate arrest of people involved in this unfortunate incident.
We could not find a single credible news source saying that the woman in the viral image was a BJP supporter or that she chanted BJP slogans at a Congress rally. Therefore, we can conclusively say that the viral image — claiming a group of Congress supporters beat up a BJP supporter for chanting pro-BJP slogans in a Congress rally — is misleading.
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