Suvendu Adhikari flags ‘Kashmiris’ in WB with ‘suspicious’ device; address leads to MP residents with a Wi-Fi unit

With tensions running high in the country after 26 tourists were shot dead in a terror attack in the picturesque Baisaran valley in Kashmir, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from West Bengal, Suvendu Adhikari added fuel to the fire by sharing the address of two purported Kashmiri residents in the state on social media, urging police and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to look into it.

The gun attack took place on the afternoon of April 22 in the lush meadows of Baisaran valley. According to eyewitness accounts, the assailants checked the religious identity of the tourists before shooting them. Those present at the time of the attack also told news outlets that terrorists asked them to recite the Kalma (Islamic prayer) and shot those who could not. Most of the victims of the attack are reportedly Hindu, while a local Muslim pony keeper, who stood up to the terrorists, was also shot. The act sent shockwaves across the country with many politicians and civilians avowing revenge for Hindus.

On the morning of April 24, Adhikari, who is also the Leader of Opposition in the state assembly, wrote a post on X that he received information from a ‘local contact’ that two individuals from Kashmir were residing in Baruipur, West Bengal and tagged the X handles of West Bengal police and the NIA, urging them to investigate. “They have installed a NanoBeam 2AC compact and high-performance wireless network bridge at the rooftop. Its designed to provide efficient and reliable solution for high-speed, long-distance wireless connectivity,” wrote Adhikari. He also attached an image of the purported ‘device’ as evidence. (Archive)

Here’s a screenshot of the X post. (Alt News has blurred out the address released by Adhikari to protect the privacy of individuals residing there.)

Fact Check

We ran the image uploaded by Adhikari through a Google reverse image search. This led us to a YouTube video featuring the same device seen in the BJP leader’s post. According to the YouTube video, it was the outdoor unit of the Reliance Jio AirFiber Plus Wi-Fi router.

We compared the image shared by Adhikari with a screengrab from the YouTube video and noticed that most of the physical attributes matched.

Taking a cue from this, we looked up the Jio AirFiber online. We found a YouTube video from April 12, 2024, where someone had recorded the unboxing of the outdoor unit (ODU) of the Jio AirFiber. Here, too, the features matched those of the device shared by Suvendu Adhikari. The user also mentions that this was the new version of the outdoor unit that had been released recently.

We also looked up the X handle of the district police in Baruipur, where Adhikari claimed the two individuals lived and found that the police had rubbished Adhikari’s claims on the evening of April 24.

According to the police, the two individuals that Adhikari claimed were Kashmiris were actually from Madhya Pradesh. “In reality, the two individuals, one of them a Hindu and the other a Muslim, both from Madhya Pradesh, rented a flat in Baruipur about three weeks ago. Engineers by profession, they were exploring business opportunities in pisciculture in West Bengal through a local friend. There is a simple Jiofibre network in their flat as is used by numerous citizens, with nothing suspicious about it. It is unfortunate that some people choose to disseminate such inaccurate and potentially inciteful information through social media, instead of communicating it to a state or central agency,” the police wrote.

Thus, in a misguided act of vigilantism, BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari shared the full address of two individuals in West Bengal who he believed were Kashmiris, along with an image of a device he claimed was suspicious. In reality, the image was of the outdoor unit of a Wi-Fi connection that is fairly common and the two people are from Madhya Pradesh. Adhikari, who is an elected representative and the Leader of Opposition in the Bengal Legislative Assembly, not only shared baseless information but also fanned divisive sentiments by singling out Kashmiris after the Pahalgam terror attack.

Note that at the time this article was written, Adhikari had still not taken down his X post.

The post Suvendu Adhikari flags ‘Kashmiris’ in WB with ‘suspicious’ device; address leads to MP residents with a Wi-Fi unit appeared first on Alt News.

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