Murder video from Brazil is passed off as from post-poll violence in West Bengal - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
May 7, 2021
A post accompanying the video that shows a young boy beaten to death with stones and axe blows is being shared on different platforms with a claim attributing the incident to India. FACTLY received the same video to its WhatsApp tip line (+91 9247052470) with a claim attributing it to the post-poll violence in West Bengal. Let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of a young boy beaten to death with stones and axe blows in India.
Fact: This video shows a murder incident in Fortaleza, the capital of the Brazilian state of Ceara, where a teenager was beaten to death with stones and axe blows over alleged LGBTQ phobia back in 2018. Multiple Brazilian news agencies reported the incident. The video has nothing to do with India or West Bengal post-poll violence.  Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Reverse image search of the screenshots of the video led us to a couple of 2018 Brazilian news articles which reported the same incident in the video. As per one such article, the incident took place in Fortaleza, capital of a Brazilian state of Ceara and the incident is being investigated by civil police of Ceara.
According to another news article, the incident happened in Ceara in Brazil where a teenager was murdered over an alleged LBTQ phobia. The article quoted civil police of the state of Ceara saying “after investigating the origin of the images, it was found that it was the homicide that killed Wesley Tiago de Sousa Carvalho (17), in the neighbourhood Praia do Futuro – Integrated Security Area 10 (AIS 10), on December 30”. The article also states that ‘the opinion of the police investigation denies that it is an LGBT-phobic crime’. Although the intent behind the crime is not known, the above two articles make it clear that the video has nothing to do with India or for that matter the post-poll violence in West Bengal.
Amidst multiple news reports of post-poll violence in West Bengal, posts like these are being shared on social media platforms with misleading claims.
To sum it up, a murder video from Brazil is passed off as post-poll violence in West Bengal.