A video showing two women being tied to a pillar by a few other women is being shared widely on social media. It is claimed that the clip depicts Hindus being tortured in Bangladesh by Muslims.
Bangladesh was plunged into a crisis with erstwhile Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ousted on August 5 after a month-long nationwide student protest which saw the deaths of hundreds. Incidents of attacks on minority Hindus have been reported from several parts of the country since August 5. This particular video, too, is viral in that context.
Premium subscribed X user Salwan Momika (@Salwan_Momika1) shared the above-mentioned clip on August 7 with the following caption: “Save the #Hindus in #Bangladesh. They are being subjected to genocide by Muslims and their women are being taken captive and sold, as happened to us in Iraq.” The tweet has received more than 10.4 Lakh views and has been retweeted over 11,000 times. (Archive)
Save the #Hindus in #Bangladesh.
They are being subjected to genocide by Muslims and their women are being taken captive and sold, as happened to us in Iraq. pic.twitter.com/89WgXguQJg
— Salwan Momika (@Salwan_Momika1) August 7, 2024
Another premium subscribed X user, Niyak Ghorbani (نیاک) (@GhorbaniiNiyak), also shared the same video with a caption which claimed that the concerned clip depicted Muslims in Bangladesh committing violence against minorities. The tweet has received over 10.2 Lakh views and has been retweeted over 7,900 times. (Archive)
Remember the Yazidi women who were sold as slaves by ISIS?
Now in Bangladesh, Muslims who have come to power are doing the same thing!Religion of peace! pic.twitter.com/7Fi6Xfu522
— Niyak Ghorbani (نیاک) (@GhorbaniiNiyak) August 7, 2024
Fact Check
We broke down the video into several key frames and ran a reverse image search on a few of them. This led us to a Facebook post from July 17 which contained the same video. The caption in Bengali says, “Badrunnessa college leaders are being held hostage by ordinary students.”
Taking a cue from this, we ran a relevant keyword search in Bengali and came across a news report from Jago News 24 which carried a screengrab from the viral video. The headline in Bengali said, “Students tied up Chhatra League workers, made them do squats holding ears.”
As per the report, the Bangladesh Chhatra League leaders enjoyed exclusive clout over students at the Begum Badrunnessa Women’s College in Dhaka. Everyone felt they had to be subservient to them. As a protest against this, some agitating students tied up a few of them and made some others do squats holding their ears. The report also mentioned that after some time the college teachers arrived and helped the Chhatra League members leave.
The Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) is the student wing of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League which was in power for 15 years in Bangladesh till Hasina’s resignation on August 5, 2024. The above incident took place on July 17, at a time when the protests in the country began to get violent.
Another report by Shotoban mentioned that the incident was connected to a boycott call against Chhatra League workers in all educational institutions.
We also found this viral video posted on Dhaka Age’s YouTube channel on July 17 with the same context as mentioned in the above news report. The title of the video said: “Students tied up Badrunnesa College Chhatra League leaders”. At the 19-second mark of the video, one can also see that the same women who were being tied up were made to hold their ears.
Hence, it can be concluded that while the viral video is from Bangladesh and is related to the protests, it is from July 2024 and does not show violence against minorities. There was no communal angle to the incident. The clip is being shared with a misleading claim.
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