A 27-second long video has gone viral on social media over the past week. The clip shows a mob, predominantly comprising men, kicking and attacking a woman in the middle of a busy street, while police personnel in the vicinity do little to nothing to prevent the attack.

The X user, Vikas Pokhariyal (@vikasindiafirst), posted the clip on August 31, claiming that a female Hindu teacher had been attacked by Islamists in Bangladesh. At the time of this article being written, the post had been reshared over 3000 times. (Archive)

Pokhariyal later posted a reply to his tweet, attempting to correct his earlier claim. “Correction: The woman was reportedly assaulted by shopkeepers and salesmen after she complained about the shop under the Consumer Rights Protection Law,” the tweet read.

Another X user, Deepak Sharma (@SonOfBharat7), posted the same clip, with a seperate claim that in Bangladesh, a Dalit teacher had allegedly offered water to an upper-caste Muslim child, following which she was chased down in the streets and thrashed. (Archive)

X user Yati Sharma (@yati_Official1) further amplified similar claims. (Archive)

Fact Check

To verify the authenticity of the claims surrounding the viral clip, Alt News broke it down into keyframes. A reverse image search on one keyframe led us to a news report published by the Bangladeshi news portal BD News 24 on August 30.

According to the report, the incident took place at Bangladesh’s Rajbari clothes market, on August 29. The victim in the video is reportedly a female shop owner, who managed her own clothing shop in the market for 12 years. She had allegedly found that one of her female employees had started working in a different shop on August 22. In response, she dismissed the worker from her role at the shop and asked her collect payment in the following month.

Further, another news report published by The Dhaka Tribune on August 30, identifies the female shop owner as one Zakia Sultana, and the ex-employee as Shahana Parveen Bristy. In another report by the outlet Ajker Patrika, Sultana accused Bristy of turning up at her shop with 15-20 men on August 23 and intimidating and verbally abusing her.

This prompted Sultana to launch a protest at the clothes market on August 29 afternoon, along with her female employees. Enraged by this, several shop-owners from the Rajbari clothes market then attacked her, in the presence of police officers who had turned up at the spot to offer her protection, the report states. However, in the video it is visible the that men continue to kick and attack Sultana despite police presence.

We also found a video report from BBC News Bangla, uploaded on August 31, which shows recorded evidence of the attack.

News reports from Bangla TV, Views Bangladesh, and Jago News 24, dated September 1, also reveal that three people have been arrested in relation to the violent attacks on Sultana, as recorded in the viral video.

In conclusion, the viral clip which shows a woman being violently attack is indeed from Bangladesh, but the woman seen in the clip is Muslim, thereby refuting any allegation of a communal angle at play.

Further, the reason for the attack arises from a business dispute as reported by several credible news outlets, thus the aforementioned claims, including that Sultana is a Dalit teacher who was beaten up for offering water to a Muslim child or that she complained about the other shop under the Consumer Rights Protection Law, are false and misleading.

False
Claim:
Hindu woman beaten up by "Islamists" in Bangladesh, a Dalit teacher beaten up for offering water to a Muslim child

The content is factually incorrect or fabricated.

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