Videos show unrest in Nepal and Indonesia, not Bangladesh
- Published on October 6, 2025 at 06:26
- 3 min read
- By Rasheek MUJIB, AFP Bangladesh
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"Attacking the army and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) in violation of Section 144 and looting weapons," reads the Bengali-language caption to a 4-second clip shared on Facebook on September 28, 2025.
It shows people filming and following a man holding a weapon along a street.
The same clip was shared alongside similar claims elsewhere on Facebook after protests by indigenous communities erupted in Bangladesh's southeastern Khagrachari district over the alleged rape of a schoolgirl (archived link).
Three men were shot dead and dozens injured in the unrest, which prompted authorities to impose a law banning "unlawful assembly" for eight days until October 5 (archived link).
A second clip showing another chaotic nighttime protest scene, with explosions and police cars driving down a crowded street, also surfaced on September 27 on Facebook. The post claimed it depicted the unrest in Khagrachari.
The region has long been a flashpoint between Indigenous communities and Bengali-speakers, with clashes breaking out over land and resources.
Bangladesh's interior ministry chief claimed weapons from "outside the country" were fuelling the violence, while the army's public relations wing in a statement accused the the United People's Democratic Front (UPDF), a holdout rebel faction, of instigating the violence and firing hundreds of shots (archived link).
On October 1, local media reported that no evidence of rape was found by a government medical board examination of the schoolgirl, but an indigenous group said the medical report was "fabricated" (archived link).
However, none of the circulating clips were taken in Bangladesh, they instead show scenes from protests in Nepal and Indonesia.
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the first falsely shared clip matches the beginning of a longer video on YouTube published on September 27, 2025 (archived link).
The video's caption links the footage to Nepal's "Gen Z" protests, which began with demonstrations against a social media ban on September 8 and erupted into wider discontent over corruption and ultimately ousted the Himalayan country's government (archived link).
AFP found the scene corresponds to Google Street View imagery of an area outside a police station along Ring Road in Kathmandu (archived link).
The second falsely shared video corresponds to footage shared in a compilation on Instagram on August 30, 2025 (archived link).
The Indonesian-language caption states the footage shows a protest in Solo, a city in central Java officially known as Surakarta, on August 29, 2025.
Further keyword and reverse image search found another YouTube video posted on August 29 captioned "chaos at Solo protest", showing the same incident from a different angle (archived link).
Protests broke out across Indonesia in late-August, sparked by discontent over economic inequality and lavish perks for lawmakers and intensified by the killing of a young delivery driver by a paramilitary police unit (archived link). At least 10 people were killed, and hundreds injured.
Buildings and roadside decorations seen in the circulating video correspond to Google Maps Street View imagery along Slamet Riyadi Street in Surakarta (archived link).
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