There is a video on social media that purportedly shows a group of people vandalising a railway station after the sound of trains disrupted their namaz. Manorama Online's Fact Check team received a message on its number 8129100164 seeking the veracity of the video and the accompanying message. Let us get to the truth:
Background
The video and the message therein said the Mahishasur railway station in Murshidabad district of West Bengal bore the brunt of the attack. The video goes out with the message saying “we can see the future of India.”
The investigation
Manorama Online's Fact Check team started looking for recent reports of mob attacks on railway stations in Murshidabad district in particular and West Bengal in general. There were none. On closer examination of the video, it was found that the railway station featuring in the video was Naopara Mahishasur. This station is under the Malda Railway Division of the Eastern Railway Zone.
Video of 2019
A keyword search on social media showed that this was a video from 2019 and the protests were part of the anti-CAA agitation. In the original video, anti-CAA and NRC slogans are heard, too.
Official confirmation
Manorama Online team spoke to an official of the Eastern Railway and got a formal confirmation that the video was indeed from the protests of December 2019. It had nothing to do with the ‘train’s sound disrupting namaz'.
Further search revealed that the station indeed saw protests on December 15, 2019 as Murshidabad witnessed widespread anti-CAA agitations then.
The fact
It is clear that the message that people attacked the railway station in retaliation for ‘the sound of trains affecting namaz’ is factually wrong and untrue.
