A Calcuttan now living in Noida woke up to frantic calls from family and friends on Thursday morning because the Bengal BJP had identified him as one of those killed in alleged post-poll violence some 1,300km away at a village in north Bengal.
After he shook himself out of disbelief, the 27-year-old journalist wrote on social media that he was “hale and hearty”.
A purported video showing violent scenes that the BJP claimed were from Bengal and the photograph of Abhro Banerjee — identifying him as “Manik Moitra”, of Sitalkuchi village in Cooch Behar district — was in circulation.
The five-minute-21-second video that was posted on Facebook by BJP West Bengal on Wednesday was shared over 1,500 times and had 4,800 “reactions” as of Thursday.
“I am Abhro Banerjee, living and hale and hearty and around 1,300km away from Sitalkuchi. BJP IT Cell is now claiming I am Manik Moitra and died in Sitalkuchi. Please don’t believe these fake posts and please don’t worry. I repeat: I am (still) alive,” he wrote on his Facebook timeline.
Once he called out the fake post the state BJP was forced to admit the “error.”
One of Banerjee's family members wrote on Facebook: “The man in the photograph is Abhro Banerjee, a journalist and not a BJP worker and very much Alive.”
Senior officers of Calcutta police said the matter had been brought to their notice and “legal action is being taken”.
The video was first shown at a BJP press conference at The Westin hotel, New Town, on Wednesday in the presence of senior BJP leaders and media personnel. A senior BJP leader before showing the video at the press conference had claimed: “The ruling party is tagging many of the BJP posts as fake. But we are taking responsibility for this six-minute video. Place, time, person – we have all the authentication. If needed, we can provide that to you.”
Hours after Banerjee’s post hit social media, the video was taken off the Facebook timeline of BJP West Bengal and an official statement was issued. The video of the press conference is still posted on the Facebook timeline of BJP West Bengal.
The statement issued by the BJP mentioned: “The image of Mr. Abhro Banerjee was erroneously included in the video while using as article by him as a source for the content….To set the record straight, Shri Manik Moitro succumbed to his injuries in Sitalkuchi following violence instigated and inflicted by TMC members, his image has been included with this statement. May his soul rest in eternal peace.”
The statement was accompanied with a purported photograph of a person lying on a stretcher with a woman standing by it. The identity of the persons in the photograph or its authenticity could not be verified independently by this paper.
This is not the first time a post or advertisement published by the BJP has been allegedly found to be fake or erroneous.
Two months ago, a woman living in a one-room home in Bowbazar’s Malanga Lane had found her photograph published in newspapers in an advertisement with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that claimed she had received a house under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. The woman — later identified as Lakshmi Devi - had dismissed the claims and had said she had no idea about the advertisement.
The Telegraph reported on Thursday that a senior BJP leader’s tweet containing a video of purported post-poll celebrations in Bengal, with people carrying daggers and guns, was found to be an old video by the police that had allegedly been morphed with the Khela Hobe song in the background.
