Video shows attack on Muslim shrine in Bangladesh, not India
- Published on April 23, 2025 at 09:18
- 3 min read
- By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India
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"In West Bengal, 12 villages were evacuated, and 150 acres of Hindu farmland were destroyed. Animals, trees, vehicles, bungalows are being burnt by Muslims," reads the Hindi-language caption to a Facebook video shared on April 13, 2025.
"Why doesn't Mamata Banerjee respond to this," it adds, referring to West Bengal's chief minister. "Hindus, you must speak up."
The video, viewed over 260,000 times, shows a group of people wearing skull caps and carrying sticks marching through fields and past a small reservoir. They are later seen pelting a structure with stones and appear to have set it on fire.
The video surfaced alongside similar claims on Facebook and X in mid-April after three people were killed and 118 arrested in protests that erupted in West Bengal over the passage of a bill to reform hugely wealthy Muslim land-owning organisations (archived link).
According to India's ruling Hindu nationalist government, the legislation will boost transparency around land management by holding powerful Waqf boards accountable.
The political opposition has called the bill a polarising "attack" on India's Muslim minority, and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party of trying to win favour with its right-wing Hindu base.
The circulating video, however, was not filmed in West Bengal.
Bangladesh shrine
A reverse image search on Google of the video's keyframes found it had been shared on Facebook on November 28, 2024 (archived link).
Its Bengali-language caption reads: "Sherpur Darbar Sharif came under attack, vandalised, looted and torched."
Bangladeshi news outlets reported at the time that violent clashes erupted after a group of Muslims targeted a shrine in the Sherpur district over claims of "anti-Islamic activities" (archived here and here).
Local newspaper Prothom Alo reported that one person was killed and several others injured, citing figures provided by authorities (archived link).
Details from the reports led to an image of a reservoir and its surrounding railing on Google Maps geotagged to the Sherpur district that corresponds to the body of water seen in the falsely shared video (archived link).
AFP has debunked other misinformation about the unrest in India's West Bengal state.
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