Rumour

In the Lok Sabha elections, the news of violence from Bengal has been continuously coming out. In Kolkata, BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow also became very fierce. A post with a set of two images is being shared on social media to show BJP workers doing violence during road show.

A Facebook page Pol khol post a photo on his Facebook account with the caption"These are the simple, naive activists of the BJP who are doing a roadshow in a peaceful manner in the direction of Amit Shah, a clean image leader!".  This post had been shared nearly 1400 times until the news was written. 

In the first picture, a person is seen breaking the windshield of a truck with sticks while the other person stands in front with the BJP flag in hand. In the second picture, a group of people was captured while pelting stones.

Our Investigation

After the reverse search of the first picture, we found that this photo was taken in 2012 in Jharkhand's Jamshedpur. At that time, it was demonstrated during the India shutdown against the UPA government in protest against the rise in petrol prices.

The picture is included in the photo story published on the website of Hindustan Times on May 31, 2012. It has been written in its caption that during Bharat Bandh, BJP workers ransacked the vehicle against hike in petrol prices in Jamshedpur.

In the second picture, there is a violent crowd and there are many stones on the ground. On the poster visible on the left side of the picture, 'Setu Gomti Tat' and on the right side 'Vishal Exhibition' is written.  In this poster, there was also a picture of UP Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma. 

In the research, we found that the picture was clicked in the year 2010 when BJP workers in Lucknow were protesting against the Central Government against price rise. At that time the UPA government was in the centre. Rajnath Singh was also injured during this demonstration. The police had also left the tear gas shells on protesters. "

In 'The Hindu', we received a news article on this exhibition which was published on February 25, 2010. In this news too, Rajnath Singh has been referring to light injury and police protesters leaving tear gas.

Fact

These viral photos are many years old and not related to the violence in Bengal during the 2019 Lokasabha election. The first picture was clicked in 2012 where BJP workers had ransacked vehicles while protesting against the hike in petrol prices in Jamshedpur.

The second picture is from Lucknow and was clicked in 2010 when BJP workers had protested against the Central Government against inflation.