Bangladeshi TikToker thrashed for ‘stealing’: Video viral with ‘Hindu woman forced to wear Hijab’ claims

A video showing a woman being heckled and assaulted by a group of men while she tries to cover her head with a scarf is viral on social media. It is being claimed that she was forced to wear a hijab by locals in Bangladesh. In the video, the woman can be seen trying to cover her head as she cries and pleads with her assaulters.  

International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) Kolkata vice-president Radharamn Das, who has been called out for sharing communally charged misinformation on social media multiple times, shared the video on X. (Archive)

Bangladeshi Muslims are ’empowering’ a girl by making her wear a hijab. In gratitude, she thanks them by kissing their feet. This is the ‘respect’ Islam gives to girls.

Pray for all the Hindu girls, as the world has left them at the mercy of these Jihadis. pic.twitter.com/zRA4U5JMoL

— Radharamn Das राधारमण दास (@RadharamnDas) October 7, 2024

At the time of this article being written, his post had garnered nearly 130,000 views and was shared 2,000 times.

The same video was also shared by X account Voice of Hindus (@Warlock_Shabby). This user directly claimed the woman, a Hindu, was being forced to wear a hijab. The tweet said, “Horrible! No Hindu girl can even walk in Bangladesh without wearing Hijab, Welcome to new Bangladesh of Muhammad Yunus, Now No one stand for hindus in Bangladesh so we have to speak #SaveBangladesiHindus”. (Archive)

The post was viewed nearly 970,000 times and reshared 11,000 times.

Another X account, Baba Banaras, (@RealBababanaras) shared the same clip with the caption, “Atrocities against minorities continue in Bangladesh. A young Hindu girl was beaten and molested by the radical Islamist in Bangladesh for wearing a religious locket in her neck. They forced her to wear a Hijab. She wore but still she was misbehaved by radical Islamists.”

Note that Alt News has previously debunked misinformation posted by this account on several occasions.

Several other verified accounts, including Jitendra Pratap Singh (@jpsin1) and Amitabh Chaudhary (@MithilaWaala), also shared the video with similar claims. Several false claims shared by these accounts in the past have been fact-checked by Alt News (Readers can find them here and here). 

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Alt News received many requests to fact check the video and corresponding claim on its WhatsApp Helpline number (+91 76000 11160).

Fact Check

A reverse image search of some key frames from the video led us to a Facebook reel posted by Shaha Newaj. The post says, “Tiktoker Kohinoor was caught stealing at Ramu”. The frames in the reel are very similar to the viral video.

While investigating, we found a longer version of the viral video where the woman is seen being dragged from across the road and being hit from a different angle. The video is titled “Tiktoker caught stealing mobile from Ramu’s at Cox’s Bazar.” This video has now been deleted, but one can access its archived version here.

To be sure, we carefully analysed screengrabs and determined that it is indeed the same video. In the screenshots below you can see that she is wearing the same clothes, has the same collapsible gate behind her and is surrounded by the same people. See comparisons:

Taking cue from this, we did a keyword search on Facebook. We found that she had been apprehended for theft more than once in the past.

A Bangladeshi journalist, Mohammad Nur, uploaded a video on June 4 showing one such instance. The Facebook post reads: “A TikToker from Rohingya camp in Ukhiya caught stealing in Taknef and rest becomes history.”

Another user, Xobair Nur, uploaded a similar video on June 3 that said, “Tiktoker Kohinoor of Cox’s Bazar got caught red-handed while stealing gold and 1.5 lakh rupees from a woman at the Tekanf market.”

In this, one can hear her being referred to as Kohinoor.

We also came across a video uploaded by user Md. Nurol Kabir on August 30 saying, “Again the Tiktoker from Taknef has been caught stealing and detained by the committee members of the market.” At the 2:30-minute mark of this video, she can be heard saying that her name is Kohinoor Akhtar.

Many others also uploaded similar videos, identifying her as Kohinoor, a creator on TikTok. (1, 2, 3, 4)

A video compilation by Digital Bangla TV, a local news outlet in Bangladesh, uploaded on August 29 identifies her as “Tiktoker Kohinoor” who has been caught for repeatedly swindling.  

Alt News thus found that a video showing a woman being beaten up in Bangladesh on charges/suspicion of stealing is viral with the false claim that Islamists were forcing her to wear a hijab.