Kolkata, Apr 19 (IANS): One person has been arrested in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district in connection with an alleged fake video posted on the official Twitter handle of the BJP showing an old man pleading for food in the Covid-19 induced lockdown.

The old man was seen wailing, in the video, that he had gone without food for two days and asking Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that he should either be given something to eat or shot dead.

The 52-second clip posted on the BJP's official Twitter handle on April 17 said: "A heart-wrenching video of a wailing old man who has not gotten any food for the last 2 days. This is @nusratchirps's constituency where TMC (Trinamool Congress) is busy siphoning off ration while the poor suffer."

Incidentally, Nusratchirps is the Twitter handle of Basirhat MP Nusrat Jahan of Trinamool Congress.

After the post got a huge number of responses and retweets, the police swung into action and arrested folk theatre artist Mobarak Mondal who was purportedly seen begging for video in the clip.

"Jatra (folk theatre) artist in North 24 Parganas made to enact this fake information on the ration issue in Bengal. He has digital ration card and he received ration on 2nd April, 2020," the West Bengal Police said on its Twitter handle.

The state police also posted a video on its Twitter handle where the man said he was asked by some youths to enact the role of a hungry man a few days back.

"They videographed it," he said.

The video was later posted on social media.

The old man also said he has withdrawn his ration and had no complaints against the administration.

However, a senior BJP leader doubted the authenticity of the video posted by the police.

"It seems the man was coerced into saying all these. This government is known for this sort of mischief. They are even doctoring the death figure of Covid 19 patients," he said.