Image from Bangladesh is falsely shared as that of an accused in Murshidabad murders

An image of two men is being shared widely across social media with the claim that the man in a white kurta and a skull cap is the one involved in Murshidabad murders. Let’s analyze the authenticity of that claim.

Claim: Image of a man who killed a family in Murshidabad.

Fact: In the image, the man in blue kurta is Mehedi Hasan Rasel, an accused in the murder of a student in a Bangladesh University. The man along with him is his father. This image is from the Facebook account of Rasel and is shared linking him to the murder of a family in Murshidabad, West Bengal. So, the claim made in the post is FALSE.

On 08 October 2019, a 35-year-old school teacher, his wife, and their six-year-old child were killed in their house in Murshidabad, West Bengal.

When the image in the post is subjected to reverse image search, no relevant search results were obtained. But when the image of the man in blue kurta was cropped and searched on Google, it was found in an article of a Bangladesh news portal ‘Justnewsbd’. The article was about the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), a student organization in Bangladesh expelling 11 leaders and activists of its Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) unit for their involvement in the murder of a student Abrar Fahad. The article quoted the names of expelled members as Mehedi Hasan Russel, Muhtasim Fuad, Mehedi Hasan Robin, Anik Sarkar, Meftahul Islam, Moniruzzaman Monir, Efti Mosharraf Sokal, Mostoba Rafid, Muntasir Al Jami, Ehtemamul Rabbi, and Muzahidur Rahman. But from the article, the names of the men in the photos weren’t clear.

When we tried to find details regarding the murder in BUET, an article of ‘The Daily Star’ was found and it carried the photos of the students who were accused in that murder case. When you go through these photos, the man in the original picture was identified as Mehedi Hasan Rasel (earlier article quoted him as Mehedi Hasan Russel).

When one visits the Facebook account of ‘Mehedi Hasan Rasel’, the same image of two men was found in his profile and was known to be posted on 10 June 2019, with a text in Bangla whose English translation is ‘Inspiration… Father’. So, the man along with him is his father.

Ever since West Bengal Police have said that they have detained 4 persons in the Murshidabad murder case, this image of this man from Bangladesh is being shared across social media platforms as the accused in the murder case of a family in West Bengal, India.

To conclude, the image from Bangladesh is falsely shared as that of the accused in the Murshidabad murder case.

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