Old video from Bangladesh falsely linked to violence in India's West Bengal

This article is more than one year old.
Published on August 16, 2023 at 11:05
5 min read
By Anuradha PRASAD, AFP India, AFP Bangladesh

Old footage of men with sticks stopping a military convoy has resurfaced on social media with a false claim that it was filmed in India's West Bengal state as it was gripped by violence in July 2023. The video was actually filmed in Bangladesh and has circulated online during violent protests against a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March 2021.

"The situation in West Bengal is really bad," reads part of the Hindi caption to the video shared on Facebook on July 12, 2023. "Rohingya and Bangladeshi Muslims stopped a vehicle carrying injured army personnel."

West Bengal has a long border with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, where almost a million stateless Rohingya minority live in squalid conditions in overcrowded refugee camps after fleeing violence and discrimination in Myanmar.

The post goes on to say: "We still have time. Decide whether you want to protest against them or surrender. It is up to you."

A screenshot of the misleading claim taken on August 8, 2023

The post surfaced after a string of violence related to local elections in the state killed 10 people in July. AFP reported footage aired by local broadcasters showed rival party workers roaming streets with batons, as well as ballot boxes being snatched and set alight outside polling stations (archived link).

The fierce contest was to elect municipal leaders, with more than 200,000 candidates in the running across the state of 104 million people.

The All India Trinamool Congress -- led by West Bengal's chief minister Mamata Banerjee -- has been in power since 2011 when it defeated the communist-led administration that had run the state for the prior three decades.

India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has in recent years worked hard to gain a toehold in the state as it seeks to expand its reach beyond its Hindi-speaking northern heartlands.

Similar posts have also shared the video alongside the false claim that it was filmed in West Bengal here and here on Facebook and on Twitter, which is being rebranded as "X".

But Indian fact-check organisations News Mobile and Boom here and here have reported earlier that the video was filmed in the southeastern Bangladeshi port city of Chittagong -- not in India (archived links here, here and here).

Old Bangladesh protest

A keyword search on Google found the video shared in the posts corresponds to the 12-second to 2:45 mark of longer footage uploaded on Facebook on March 28, 2021 (archived link).

The Bengali-language caption of the old clip says: "A mass protest observed, vehicles of the army were stopped."

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in one of the false posts (left) and a corresponding frame in the longer footage (right):

Screenshot comparison of the video shared in one of the false posts (left) and a corresponding frame in the longer footage (right)

At the longer video's 18-second mark, a building can be seen which corresponds to Google street imagery of a structure in Chittagong.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) and the building shown on Google Maps (right):

Screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) and the building shown on Google Maps (right).

A higher resolution clip of the same event uploaded on YouTube on April 10, 2021 also shows a building named "Al Hera Tahfizul Quran Islamic Academy" at the 2:19 mark (archived link ):

A building named "Al Hera Tahfizul Quran Islamic Academy" seen at the 2:19 mark of the misleading video, highlighted by AFP.

An Islamic school with the same name appears on Google Maps in Chittagong (archived link).

Soldiers in the vehicles can also be seen wearing the insignia of the Bangladesh army -- crossed swords below the national flower shapla -- on their uniforms.

Below are screenshots of the insignia as seen in the video highlighted by AFP:

Screenshot of the viral video taken on August 7, 2023

AFP reported on March 26, 2021 -- around the time the video appeared on social media -- that police said members of a hardline Islamist group were shot dead after violence erupted at Hathazari, where the group's main leaders are based (archived link).

A diverse range of Bangladeshi groups -- including students, leftists and other Islamist outfits -- then staged protests against a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

They accused Modi and his Hindu-nationalist government of stoking religious tensions and inciting anti-Muslim violence, including in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002 when 1,000 people died. Modi was Gujarat's chief minister at the time.

Local media Dhaka Tribune and Prothomalo also reported on the disturbances (archived links here and here).

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