Old clip of Covid lockdown clash falsely linked to India's Muslim land bill protests

Published on April 25, 2025 at 08:49
3 min read
By Akshita KUMARI, AFP India

Following deadly protests in India's West Bengal state over a bill that changes how Muslim-owned properties are managed, footage of a crowd confronting police surfaced in social media posts falsely claiming it showed the recent unrest. However, the clip is from 2020 and shows a clash during a Covid-19 lockdown.

"After Friday prayers in West Bengal, security personnel themselves needed protection," reads the Hindi-language caption of a video shared on Facebook on April 19, 2025.

"Is this West Bengal in India or Bangladesh???" the post goes on to say, referring to the string of reprisal attacks on Hindus in India's Muslim-majority neighbour after the ouster of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina (archived link).

The clip shows a crowd of people, some of them wearing white caps worn by Muslim men, scuffling with police officers in blue uniforms.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post, captured on April 23, 2025

The same footage with the false claim was also shared elsewhere on Facebook, X and Instagram.

It surfaced after three people were killed in protests that erupted in West Bengal over the passage of a bill to overhaul hugely wealthy Muslim land-owning organisations (archived link).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government argues the reform will boost transparency around land management by holding powerful Waqf boards accountable (archived link).

Opposition parties have criticised the government and have called the bill a polarising "attack" on India's Muslim minority.

Comments from social media users suggest they believe the video shows protests after the bill was passed.

"Wake up Hindus, wake up, see what is happening, if you don't wake up now, then when will you wake up?" read a comment on one of the posts.

Another said: "Seeing this, it seems as if Bengal has become a part of Pakistan."

But a reverse image search on Google using keyframes of the falsely shared video found Indian news agency ANI published the clip on April 28, 2020 (archived link).

"A crowd, which had gathered at a market place in Tikiapara of Howrah today - defying the lockdown, attacked Police personnel & pelted stones at them when they asked the crowd to return to their homes. 2 police personnel injured," its caption says.

Screenshot comparison of the false post video (left) and video on ANI's official X account

India Today also reported with screenshots of the video that a mob attacked several officers enforcing a lockdown in Tikiapara in West Bengal's Howrah district (archived link).

The West Bengal police issued a statement on X on 29 April, 2020, saying they were taking strong action against those involved (archived link).

Hundreds of millions of Indians were ordered into lockdowns at the time as the country stepped up measures to halt the spread of Covid (archived link).

AFP has debunked other misinformation about the unrest in India's West Bengal state here, here and here.

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail