A gruesome image of an injured sub-inspector attacked by a langur in Jharkhand’s Dhanbad has surfaced with false claims. Image mostly shared by BJP leaders claims it as one of the Central Industrial Security Force personnel injured during the poll-related violence in West Bengal’s Cooch Behar on April 10, 2021.
The image shows a side profile of a CISF jawan with his mouth mauled after the attack.
BOOM reached out to the CISF headquarters in Dhanbad who confirmed that the image is of an incident which occurred in Bagmara area of Dhanbad on April 9 when assistant sub-inspector SP Sharma was injured by a langur.
The photograph has been tweeted by several verified handles including Mamata Banerjee’s erstwhile aide turned rival, Suvendu Adhikari, who contested from the Nandigram constituency on a BJP ticket.
চতুর্থ দফার ভোটের দিন কোচবিহারের শীতলকুচি-তে @CISFHQrs সিআইএসএফ জওয়ানদের উপর হামলা চালায় @AITCofficial তৃণমূল আশ্রিত দুষ্কৃতীরা।
বন্দুক ছিনিয়ে নেওয়ার চেষ্টা করা হয়।
গুরুতর জখম হন এক জওয়ান।
তাই আত্মরক্ষার্থে গুলি চালাতে বাধ্য হয় কেন্দ্রীয় বাহিনী। pic.twitter.com/g3HM1rwe4T
— Suvendu Adhikari • শুভেন্দু অধিকারী (@SuvenduWB) April 11, 2021
The tweet has been captioned as, “During the fourth phase of voting in Cooch Behar’s Shitalkuchi, CISF jawans were attacked by TMC’s goons. They tried to snatch the guns from the jawans. One jawan was grievously injured in the incident. So the central forces were forced to fire for self defence.”
(Original text in Bangla: চতুর্থ দফার ভোটের দিন কোচবিহারের শীতলকুচি-তে @CISFHQrs সিআইএসএফ জওয়ানদের উপর হামলা চালায় @AITCofficial তৃণমূল আশ্রিত দুষ্কৃতীরা। বন্দুক ছিনিয়ে নেওয়ার চেষ্টা করা হয়। গুরুতর জখম হন এক জওয়ান। তাই আত্মরক্ষার্থে গুলি চালাতে বাধ্য হয় কেন্দ্রীয় বাহিনী। )
Many other prominent social media handles also shared this photo with a fake claim. Below are screenshots
Previously, four persons were shot dead by Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) near a polling booth in Cooch Behar in West Bengal on Saturday, the CISF officials said its men fired in retaliation when miscreants were trying to snatch their weapons.
The CISF is currently preparing an incident report to be sent to the Election Commission, which has suspended polling at the booth concerned in Sitlakuchi area.
According to CISF sources, an attempt to disrupt polling and perhaps even take over the booth was made twice by miscreants and it was in the second attempt that CISF personnel fired at the violent mob leading to four casualties.
Fact Check:
After a simple reverse image search on the photograph, the team was directed to an article by Jagran. According to the article, an assistant sub inspector of CISF was attack by langurs in Jharkhand’s Dhanbad on April 9. The article has been headlined as, “सीआइएसएफ के एएसआई को लंगूरों ने किया लहूलुहान” (Translation: Langoors injured an ASI of CRPF).
BOOM reached out to Dhanbad headquarters of CISF who corroborated the incident. SI Pradeep Kumar from the CISF confirmed to BOOM, “The incident happened in the evening of April 9 around 6 pm. ASI SP Sharma was on duty in the BK2 Area of Bagmara – it is a coal mines area, which is also infamous for langur attacks. According to preliminary reports, the langur that attacked ASI SP Sharma has been mentally unstable.” SI Pradeep Kumar further added that Sharma was rushed to the Central Hospital in Dhanbad, where he is now under treatment.
