This photo does not show jailed Bangladeshi opposition leader at prime minister’s wedding
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on July 7, 2021 at 04:24
- 2 min read
- By AFP Bangladesh
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The photo was shared here on June 25, 2021 in a Facebook group with more than 700,000 followers.
The Bengali-language caption reads: ‘‘Fantastic photo. Khaleda Zia was attending the wedding of Sheikh Hasina."
Another Facebook post published the photo on February 12, 2018, with a caption reading: ‘‘Shame on Hasina. This is how Khaleda Zia was affectionate towards Sheikh Hasina and saw her as her sister. But now Hasina sent her to jail.’’
Rival politicians Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina have been locked in a decades-long dispute which has divided Bangladesh. Zia was jailed in 2018 on corruption charges, which her party claims are politically motivated.
The misleading photo and claim were also shared here, here and here on Facebook.
However, the claim is false.
Shyrul Kabir Khan, a press official at Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) said that the bride in the photo was not Hasina, but central committee BNP leader Rokhsana Khanam Mitu.
Mitu, a BNP executive committee member, told AFP that the images in the misleading posts were actually photographs of her wedding.
The misleading photo "was shot during my wedding ceremony, which was attended by Madam Khaleda Zia, on July 14 in 2000," she said.
Mitu said that the wedding party was held in a Dhanmondi party centre in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. She pointed to Facebook posts from August 15, 2017 that show wedding photos similar to the image used in the misleading posts.
Below is a comparison between the misleading photo (L) and one of the photos (R) shared in Mitu's 2017 Facebook post:
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