This video shows a communal incident outside a mosque in Bangladesh, not India

This article is more than one year old.
Published on November 8, 2021 at 11:02
3 min read
By AFP India

Following reports of violence during a Hindu festival in Bangladesh, Facebook posts shared a video that they claimed shows Muslims disrupting prayers at a Hindu temple in the Indian city of Kolkata. The claim is false; the video was filmed outside a mosque in Bangladesh. Local police told AFP the clip shows a communal incident on October 16.

The video was shared in a Facebook post on October 25. It has been viewed more than 3,000 times.

"Thousands of Muslims demonstrating to stop prayers at Kali temple in Kolkata," the Hindi-language post reads.

"This is the same place where honourable saints have led prayers. Now these Muslims are demanding the closure of this temple. What is happening in our country? Where are we? Indians need to be woken up from their sleep and see what's happening."

The post circulated after reports of violence targeting Hindu places of worship in Bangladesh during the Durga Puja festival.

From the video's 1:37 timestamp, a man off-camera says in Bengali, "Those who are clapping are Hindus, and those on this side are all Muslims who just got out of the mosque after prayers. Then they encountered this problem. The police were there."

Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post taken on November 2, 2021

The video was shared in similar Facebook posts here and here.

However, the claim is false.

A reverse image search found a longer video posted here on YouTube on October 16 by Bangladeshi media JazKallah Media.

The video's title translates to English as: "Clashes at Feni's big mosque. This happened after the prayers. This clash involved Hindus and Muslims".

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading post (L) and the YouTube video (R):

Screenshot comparison of the misleading post video and YouTube video

The clip shows an incident at Boro mosque in Feni, a city in southeastern Bangladesh.

Below is a screenshot comparison of Boro mosque in the misleading video (L) and the same location on Google Street View (R):

Screenshot comparison of the Boro mosque located in the misleading video and Google image

On the far-right of both images, a green signboard highlighted in red by AFP reads: "Department of Narcotics Control, Feni".

Nezam Uddin, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Feni police station said the video shows an incident on October 16 in Feni.

"We are still investigating. More than 21 people were arrested. We are still searching for anyone else who was involved in fuelling the clashes in the Boro mosque area," he told AFP.

The incident was also reported in local media here on October 17.

"Police and eyewitnesses said the clash erupted around 4:30 pm on Saturday (Oct 16) in the Dhaka-Chittagong Old Trunk Road area of Feni town after an attack during the Puja celebrations in front of the Joykali temple," the report reads.

Meanwhile, AFP found no official reports of an incident at a temple in Kolkata.

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