“It’s A Crying Shame That ‘The Butcher Of Bengal’ Has A Road Named After Him In Kolkata” is the title of a story on the most prominent right-wing portal Swarajya. The Snapshot section of the story states, “Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy engineered the killings, maiming, rape and molestation of tens of thousands of Hindus in Calcutta back in 1946. It is a shame, therefore, that a major thoroughfare in Kolkata is named after a criminal who was involved in such heinous crimes against humanity.“. The concluding paragraph of the story goes onto demand that Suhrawardy Avenue in Kolkata be renamed while stating, “It is high time the name of the road is changed. Bengal does not lack heroes, and it is high time one of them is honoured instead of a criminal who caused so many deaths and such destruction in the city.”

The author of this article, Jaideep Mazumdar, is also the Associate Editor of Swarajya Magazine. His biography on the Swarajya website states that he’s journalist with many years of experience in The Times Of India, Open Magazine, The Outlook, The Hindustan Times, The Pioneer and some other news organizations.

Despite having as much journalistic experience as the author claims, this article doesn’t provide an iota of evidence regarding the central claim of the article that the Suhrawardy Avenue in Kolkata is indeed named after Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. The author rants on for over 3000 words talking about Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and his alleged brutality and crimes. Since the time this article was published on Swarajya website on Aug 16, 2017, many on social media have contested the central claim of this article – Is Suhrawardy Avenue named after Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy?

We looked up some old maps of Calcutta. The oldest map that we found that had mentioned Suhrawardy Avenue is a 1940 map.