Old photo of candlelight vigil in Bangladesh falsely linked to 2024 protests

"Candlelight demonstration at Jahangirnagar University," read a Bangla-language Facebook post shared on July 16 on a page with 115,000 followers.

The elite university on the outskirts of Dhaka was among several campuses where violent clashes broke out the previous day between police and protesters demanding an end to politicised employment quotas for sought-after government jobs (archived link). 

The unrest -- some of the worst of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure -- killed at least 205 people, including several police officers, according to an AFP tally of hospital and police data.

The government deployed troops, instituted a nationwide internet blackout and imposed a curfew to restore order, while a police dragnet scooped up thousands of protesters including at least half a dozen student leaders.

The photo, which shows a massive crowd carrying banners and lights at an intersection, made the rounds in similar Facebook posts about the protests here and here and also circulated on YouTube.

Image

Screenshot of the false post, taken July 28, 2024

While Jahangirnagar University students reportedly held a torchlight procession on campus on July 12, the photo in fact shows a different protest in 2013 (archived link).

War criminal protest

A reverse image search on Google found the photo on the website of an Indian socialist movement, where it featured a watermark that read "Photo: Sudeepto Salam/Photoffee" (archived link).

Keyword searches found the photo was posted on Facebook on February 15, 2013 by Bangladeshi writer and journalist Sudeepto Salam (archived link).  

Below is a screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and Sudeepto Salam's original photo (right):

Image

Screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and Sudeepto Salam's original photo (right)

Salam confirmed that he took the photo during a candlelight protest in Dhaka on February 14, 2013 to demand the death sentence for war criminal Abdul Quader Molla.

"On that day, thousands of people lit candles at Shahbagh intersection, the main demonstration site of the movement," he told AFP on July 28, referring to a major transport hub in the capital.

The demonstration was part of a series of protests demanding the execution of a top official in Bangladesh's Jamaat-e-Islami party after a domestic war crimes tribunal handed him a life sentence on February 5, 2013.

Molla -- who was responsible for the killing of more than 350 people during Bangladesh's war with Pakistan -- was eventually sentenced to hang in September 2013 and put to death in December that year.

Bangladesh's Dhaka Tribune newspaper published a similar photo of the vigil calling for Molla's execution (archived link).

AFP confirmed the photo was taken at the Shahbagh intersection in Dhaka by analysing Google Street View imagery from April 2013, which shows a fountain and a red billboard seen in Salam's photo.

Below is a screenshot comparison of Salam's photo (left) and the April 2013 Google Street View image (right), with similarities marked by AFP: 

Image

Screenshot comparison of Salam's photo (left) and the April 2013 Google Street View image (right), with similarities marked by AFP

Later Street View imagery from November 2023 shows a metro line now runs through the same area. 

AFP has debunked other false claims about the Bangladesh employment quota protests here, here and here.

Image