Video of Bangladeshi Hindu appealing for India's help is AI-generated
- Published on January 12, 2026 at 08:38
- 2 min read
- By Rasheek MUJIB, AFP Bangladesh
The killing of a Hindu factory worker in Muslim-majority Bangladesh has inflamed already frayed relations with neighbouring India, but a video circulating on social media that purportedly shows a woman pleading for help is AI-generated. The video was shared by an account that regularly posts AI-generated content, and contains visual inconsistencies that are indicative of synthetically generated clips.
"Another heart-wrenching cry from a Hindu sister in Bangladesh has brought tears to my eyes as a child of an Indian minority family. I urge the Indian government to teach Bangladesh a harsh lesson!" reads the Bengali-language caption of a Facebook reel shared on December 30, 2025.
The video was viewed more than 74,000 times and is superimposed with text reading: "Bangladesh hindu".
It appears to show a woman crying as she addresses her 'Indian brothers' and says, "I am speaking from Bangladesh; a guy sent me a marriage proposal and said he'll give me everything, but I am scared and confused."
The same video was also shared in similar Facebook and Instagram posts.
"We need to teach Bangladesh a lesson," read a comment on one of the posts, while another said: "India needs to intervene in Bangladesh."
The clip circulated as Muslim-majority Bangladesh grappled with high-profile killings that further inflamed tensions with its Hindu-majority neighbour India (archived link).
Hindu garment factory worker Dipu Chandra Das was killed in Mymensingh, north of the capital Dhaka, on December 18, 2025 following allegations of blasphemy.
India's The Hindu newspaper reported that protesters rallied outside Bangladeshi missions in several Indian cities, with demonstrators alleging religious minorities were being attacked across the border (archived link).
There were also violent protests within Bangladesh after student leader Sharif Osman Hadi -- a key figure in 2024's pro-democracy uprising that ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina -- was shot and killed by masked gunmen in Dhaka.
Hadi was a vocal critic of India, where Hasina has remained in self-imposed exile.
The circulating video, however, was created with AI tools.
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same clip posted on Facebook on December 24, 2025 (archived link).
The page features several similar clips and the user who owns it told AFP on January 5, 2026 they were made with AI.
A closer analysis of the footage shows multiple visual inconsistencies indicative of content generated with AI tools, such as the girl's teeth appearing to fade in and out as her mouth moves.
AFP ran the clip through the DeepFake-o-meter tool developed by the University at Buffalo which found it 100 percent likely to be AI-generated (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked other false claims stemming from the violence in Bangladesh.
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