Old, unrelated videos misrepresented as post-election violence in India's West Bengal
- Published on May 20, 2026 at 09:26
- 4 min read
- By Rasheek MUJIB, AFP Bangladesh
Political violence in India's West Bengal has killed at least five people since the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took power after May 2026 state elections, but videos of burning buildings shared online are unrelated to post-poll violence in the eastern state. The videos predate the elections, and AFP geolocated them to different locations in South Asia.
"Narendra Modi's people are burning down the houses and businesses of Muslim people," reads a May 5, 2026 Bengali-language Facebook post, which has racked up 87,000 reposts.
It claims a video of a crowd of people smashing up motorbikes next to a burning building was shot in West Bengal's state capital, Kolkata.
The video surfaced a day after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP won a landslide victory in state elections on May 4, ending the 15-year rule of the opposition All India Trinamool Congress (archived link).
The BJP's campaign in West Bengal was marked by protests over the purge of millions of names from voter rolls, billed as removing ineligible voters but which critics said was skewed against marginalised and minority communities.
Supporters of the rival parties clashed after election results were announced, with the violence killing at least five people, including new Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari's close aide.
Analysts say the ruling party's victory in West Bengal is one of its most significant since Modi was elected prime minister in 2014, expanding its dominance beyond the Hindi-speaking heartland of north and central India.
Muslim-majority Bangladesh, which borders West Bengal, has watched the state elections with close interest, and social media users there shared a series of videos they falsely claimed showed "Hindu extremists" and "supporters of the BJP" burning down mosques in the Indian state (archived link).
One Bengali-language Facebook reel on May 5, 2026 shows a man discussing a video of a building on fire alongside a caption that reads, "A mosque is set on fire by useless leaders."
Another Bengali post shared on May 7, 2026 accuses Hindus under the leadership of the new West Bengal chief minister of setting fire to a mosque in Kolkata. The accompanying video shows thick plumes of smoke and flames rising from a domed-building.
The same videos appeared in similar Facebook posts.
But the clips predate the West Bengal elections and were taken in different parts of South Asia.
Nepal protests
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the first falsely shared video matches an AFP photo from September 9, 2025 which shows the same burning building.
The description states the photo shows Nepal's Supreme Court building in its capital Kathmandu set on fire by protesters after police cracked down on demonstrations over a social media ban. The protests spiralled into a wider movement against corruption and a poor economy that led to the toppling of Nepal's former government (archived link).
The AFP photographer who took the photo of the Supreme Court building confirmed the video showed the same scene. Protesters can be seen carrying Nepal's national flag at various points in the video.
The video also matches Google Street View imagery of the Supreme Court premises in Kathmandu (archived link).
Bangladesh vandalism
Another reverse image search found the second clip was published on YouTube by Bangladeshi news outlet Somoy TV on August 29, 2025 (archived link).
The report states a mob had attacked the Jibon Mohol Park in Dinajpur, which they accused of hosting "anti-social activities", a phrase used to describe activities considered forbidden under Islam in the Muslim-majority country.
Other media outlets published similar photos of the vandalised park (archived link).
Elements seen in the video can be seen on Google Maps imagery of Dinajpur's Jibon Mahal Park (archived link).
Kashmir mosque fire
The third circulating video matches images published in a report by Indian news outlet NDTV on April 10, 2026 about a fire that broke out at a mosque in Srinagar, a city in India-administered Kashmir (archived link).
Similar images were published by a local news site in its report about the fire, which it said gutted the building but caused no casualties (archived link). However, the cause of the blaze was not immediately known.
Images of the seminary can be seen on Google Maps.
AFP has debunked misinformation swirling around the West Bengal elections here and here.
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