Tensions related to communal violence continue in Murshidabad, West Bengal, following the passage of the Waqf Amendment Bill. Amid this unrest, a video (here, here and here) has gone viral on social media showing an elderly man in a train, visibly tired, speaking in Bengali during a conversation with a TTE (Travelling Ticket Examiner). It is being claimed that this Muslim elderly man was kicked and beaten to death in West Bengal for refusing to pay extra money despite having a valid train ticket. Let’s verify the truth behind this claim.
Claim: The viral video shows a Muslim elderly man being beaten to death in a train in West Bengal for refusing to pay extra money despite having a valid ticket.
Fact: The video is not from West Bengal but from Bangladesh. It shows an incident aboard the 721 Mohanagar Provati train in 2025 where a Bangladeshi railway staff member assaulted an elderly passenger who had a valid ticket but refused to pay an illegal bribe. The accused was later identified and detained. While communal tensions flared up in Murshidabad leading to violence, this video has no link to those events. Hence, the claim is FALSE.
To verify the truth behind the video, we closely examined the footage and noticed the logo of “Rtv,” a well-known television channel based in Bangladesh. Further investigation led us to Rtv’s official Facebook handle, where the same video was uploaded on 30 March 2025. The caption of the post stated that a passenger was injured after being punched and kicked for not paying extra money despite having a train ticket.
We also found several (here, here and here) social media posts, mostly in Bangla, making similar claims about the incident. According to these posts, an elderly passenger was brutally beaten aboard the 721 Mohanagar Provati train bound for Dhaka. Despite having a valid ticket, the man was allegedly assaulted by plainclothes operators in the train’s power car coach for refusing to pay an illegal demand of 200 Bangladeshi Taka. The 721 Mohanagar Provati is a major intercity train operated by Bangladesh Railway, running between Chittagong and Dhaka, with train number 721 for the Chittagong to Dhaka route, and 722 for the return journey.
A detailed report by Rtv News, uploaded on 30 March 2025, shows that the incident occurred on the 721 Mohanagar Provati train travelling from Chittagong to Dhaka. In the video, an elderly passenger claims he was assaulted by a railway staffer despite having a valid ticket, after refusing to pay an extra 200 Taka. The accused, believed to be a plainclothes railway security staff, is later seen in handcuffs apologising by touching the elder’s feet. The man accepts the apology, and the incident was reportedly escalated to senior railway officials.
Additionally, while several communal incidents have indeed been reported in Murshidabad, West Bengal, the viral video in question has no connection with these events and is actually from Bangladesh.
To sum up, a video showing an elderly man being assaulted on a train in Bangladesh is falsely shared as an attack on a Muslim man in West Bengal.
