Following the passage of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 in the first week of April, Muslims have been protesting against the newly enacted law across the country, including in West Bengal (here, here, and here). According to news reports (here, here), on 11 April 2025, these protests turned violent in Murshidabad district, West Bengal, resulting in Violence and riots. Reports (here, here, and here) indicate that three people lost their lives in the violence: two Hindus, Chandan Das and Hargobind Das, were killed in a mob attack, while a Muslim man died in police firing. According to reports, hundreds of people (mostly Hindus) affected by the violence in Murshidabad district crossed the Bhagirathi River and sought refuge in the adjoining Malda district (here, here, and here). On 12 April 2025, the Calcutta High Court ordered the deployment of central forces to restore peace and order in the district (here, here).
Amidst this unrest, a viral video (here, here, and here) on social media claims to show supporters of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) surrounding Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) leader Dilip Ghosh and trying to attack him in Bhawanipur (Bhabanipur), West Bengal. Users sharing this video say in the viral posts’ description that ‘…perhaps Bengal is no longer run by law, but by hooliganism’(Hindi text translated to English). We will fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: This video shows a recent 2025 incident of people from the TMC trying to attack BJP leader Dilip Ghosh in West Bengal.
Fact: The video shows an old incident from September 2021. During an election campaign in the Bhabanipur assembly constituency, Dilip Ghosh was pushed and heckled, allegedly by the supporters of Trinamool Congress. Hence, the claim made in the post is Misleading.
To check the veracity of the viral claim, we performed a keyword search on the internet and found no credible news reports to prove that the supporters/workers of the TMC recently attacked BJP leader Dilip Ghosh. However, during this search, we found (archive link) video news reports published by the digital media outlet Mojo Story in 2021 on their verified YouTube channel.
This report contained (here) the visuals seen in the viral video. According to this report, this video shows BJP leader Dilip Ghosh being ‘manhandled and attacked during his campaign trail for Bhabanipur bypoll in West Bengal.’
To learn more about this incident, we performed a keyword search on the internet and found several news reports (here, here, and here) about this incident from September 2021.
As per these reports, this incident occurred on 27 September 2021 when BJP leader Dilip Ghosh visited a vaccination camp in the Jadubabur Bazaar area of the Bhabanipur constituency for an election campaign. As per the police, he was ‘pushed and heckled by alleged Trinamool supporters in Bhabanipur assembly constituency,’ NDTV reported. According to a report by Times of India, ‘The TMC supporters present at the spot shouted slogans demanding that he leave, alleging he was campaigning at a state-run vaccination programme.’
In relation to this incident, the West Bengal police reportedly arrested eight people and registered an FIR. The Election Commission had sought a report from the Bengal government (here and here). This evidence makes it clear that the incident seen in the viral video is from September 2021, not 2025.
To sum up, a 2021 video is being shared as a recent incident of TMC supporters trying to attack BJP leader Dilip Ghosh.
