Kolkata: Just across the road from Bikash Bhavan, one of the administrative hubs of the West Bengal government in Salt Lake near Kolkata, lies a cluster of shanties. It was there, last weekend, that chaos broke out. A young man was seen sprinting through the narrow lanes, chased by a group of journalists with cameras in hand.The man was Rafiqul Sardar, a daily labourer who lives in the city. Sardar’s parents and family are permanent residents of Shyamnagar village, under Dosa Gram Panchayat in Joynagar-I block in Soutth 24 Parganas. Their names are in the 2002 voter list.Speaking to The Wire, Sardar described the day, “They kept saying, ‘You are a Bangladeshi, what are you doing here?’ They kept coming in groups, over and over again. Even after I showed them my Aadhaar and voter ID, they wouldn’t stop.”Unable to bear the continued intrusion, a cornered Rafiqul finally tried to run from the media persons. That brief act of panic was quickly twisted by sections of the media into the image of a “fleeing Bangladeshi.” The footage was circulated widely across news portals and social media. Desperate and under immense pressure, Sardar sought legal counsel this week.Sardar clarified, “I went to a lawyer for help because I’m scared to even go look for work now – what if they start shouting again?” Rafiqul’s family.Sabyasachi Chatterjee, his lawyer, has branded this a failing at multiple levels.“A poor day labourer is being branded a Bangladeshi. Taking advantage of his simplicity, a section of the media is pushing the RSS’s agenda of hate and division. What’s worse, no one from the ruling party has stood by him,” said Chatterjee.This has prompted many to ask whether media personnel have the right to inspect a citizen’s ID documents or chase someone based solely on their appearance or economic status. The backdrop to this fear is the ongoing ‘special intensive revision’ (SIR) of electoral rolls. While ostensibly a cleanup exercise, civil society groups and opposition figures argue its true purpose is to lay the groundwork for a future National Register of Citizens (NRC). This perception of a looming identity crisis is being amplified by a media and social media blitz. A screengrab from a channel attempting show people living in shanties.In recent weeks, several media outlets and YouTube channels have circulated videos claiming that “Bangladeshis” are fleeing slums across Kolkata as the SIR exercise begins. Some clips show frightened residents holding up their Aadhaar and voter cards to prove their identity, while in one video, an elderly woman living in a shanty was asked by a reporter to produce her “passport.” A channel uses footage of Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazaar (right) to give the impression that they are fleeing Bengal through the Ghojadanga India-Bangladesh border due to the SIR (left).Leaders of the state’s main opposition party, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), has further amplified this hysteria, with posts insinuating that domestic workers or daily labourers who fail to show up for work have “returned to Bangladesh.” A post by Suvendu Adhikari.Rights activists allege that such narratives are not accidental, but part of a coordinated campaign to manufacture fear and polarise public opinion ahead of future elections.“The same tone in which BJP’s Leader of the Opposition speaks about SIR is being echoed by sections of the media. The Sangh’s playbook is being followed to create one-sided narratives. But SIR doesn’t only target Muslims,” said Sheikh Saidul Haque, cultural activist and former CPI(M) MP. “It’s also a conspiracy to strip the poor, Dalits, and Adivasis of their rights. Mainstream media’s silence on this is dangerous and is creating deep resentment among the public.”Subsequent fact-checks, however, revealed that many of these reports were misleading or entirely false. Several videos were traced to footage from Bangladesh or identified as AI-generated. Zee 24 Ghanta issues an apology.A leading Bengali-language audio-visual media outlet was recently compelled to issue a public clarification after one of its reports was exposed as entirely fabricated. Yet, law enforcement agencies in West Bengal, otherwise quick to flag misinformation, have remained conspicuously silent on the matter. In contrast, several activists who have spoken out against the fear-mongering and dehumanisation surrounding the SIR exercise have reported that their social media posts and pages were taken down.“Several of our Facebook accounts, including mine, have been made invisible in India on the orders of the West Bengal Police Department. This action was taken because we have been consistently writing against the SIR and uploading posters and videos related to protest programmes,” alleged Ranjt Sur, general secretary of the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR).Ranjit Sur’s post, taken down at Bengal law enforcement’s request.As the SIR exercise fuels growing anxiety over identity and belonging, fear has been used for votes, TRP, views, and influence. Trapped in this cycle, the poor are left to prove their right to exist in their own land.Translated from the Bengali original by Aparna Bhattacharya.