Video shows assault in Bangladesh in 2017, not religious riots in India in 2023
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 24, 2023 at 12:01
- 3 min read
- By Uzair RIZVI, AFP India, AFP Bangladesh
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Warning: clips and images show violence
The 12-second video, which shows a group of men assaulting someone lying prone on the ground, was shared here on X, formerly known as Twitter, on August 2, 2023.
At the five-second mark of the video, one of the assailants, who is wearing a white skullcap, picks up a large rock and throws it down onto the victim's legs.
The video's Hindi-language caption reads: "If Hindu brothers don't wake up even after this in Mewat, this will be the end."
Mewat, a predominantly Muslim district in India's Haryana state that was renamed Nuh in 2016, was where religious riots began at the end of July.
AFP reported at least six people were killed in the unrest, which began when mobs hurled stones at a Hindu religious procession and set cars alight in the district, around 75 kilometres (45 miles) south of New Delhi.
Arson and vandalism attacks broke out the following evening in nearby Gurugram, a satellite city of the capital and a key business centre where major multinationals have their Indian headquarters (archived link).
The video was shared elsewhere on X here and here, as well as on Facebook here, alongside a similar claim it was filmed in Haryana.
But the video is old and shows a man killed in Bangladesh in 2017.
Bangladesh attack
A similar video was shared on Facebook here on June 18, 2017, in a post captioned in Bengali: "Accused in the murder of Chairman Monir hacked to death" (archived link).
"Chairman Monir" appears to refer to a Bangladeshi local official who was reportedly shot dead a few months prior.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video used in the false posts (left) and the Facebook video from 2017 (right):
Content warning
Local news organisations on Dhaka Times 24 and Kaler Kantho reported the incident shown in the video happened in Comilla, now known as Cumilla in eastern Bangladesh (archived links here and here).
Police files in a station in Cumilla seen by an AFP reporter state the man in the video -- named Abu Sayeed -- was killed on April 1, 2017.
Fifteen individuals were arrested for Sayeed's killing and subsequently released on bail, police records show.
The case is currently under trial, Md Shahidul Pradhan, an inspector at the Daudkandi Model Thana station in Cumilla, told AFP on August 23.
A similar false claim the video showed a Hindu man being beaten up by a "Muslim mob" in the east Indian state of Bengal had earlier circulated in 2019.
Local police told AFP the victim was Muslim.
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