Video of burning Halloween prop in China shared as ‘Hindu genocide’ in Bangladesh

Trigger Warning: Disturbing Visuals

A short video apparently showing a human body tied up and placed above a fire is being shared on X (formerly Twitter) as yet another incidence of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh.

X user Mini Razdan (@mini_razdan10) posted the video on December 12, claiming it genocide was taking place in the neighbouring country. “Hindu Gen0cide in Bangladesh …. WAKE UP HINDUS BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” the post, which was later deleted, said. However, by then, it had already been viewed over 6,000 times and shared widely.

The video has also been shared with similar claims by users such as Dr JaiNath Singh (@DrJaiNathSingh3) and Sanjeev Singh (@Sanjeev26429531), among others.

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Fact Check

A reverse image search of some key frames from the video led us to an Instagram post by Galaxychimelong, uploaded on October 31, 2018. The location was specified in the post as Hengqin, Guangdong, China.

The Instagram post contains a video in which a similar contraption — with sets of sticks tied up vertically at two ends and another stick connecting them horizontally with logs of wood placed underneath it — can be seen. The video also shows a man rotating a handle from one end and the human-like figure tied to the horizontal stick rotates with it.

On investigating further, we found a YouTube video uploaded on October 27, 2018, by travel vlogger SviatMe. The video was titled “Halloween Party at Chimelong Ocean Park, Zhuhai, China” and we can see similar visuals as the viral post from the 5:26-minute mark in the video. 

We are not embedding the video here in view of its graphic nature. 

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Based on this, it seems like the human-like figure is merely a prop used for Halloween celebrations.

Taking cue from this, we ran another keyword search. This led us to a fact-check report by an Indonesia-based anti-hoax portal, posted on December 28, 2019. Turns out this isn’t first time the video has gone viral with a false claim. In 2019, the video was widely shared with rumours that it showed a restaurant in Nigeria serving human flesh. 

The Indonesian outlet’s report debunking that claim also corroborates that the clip was actually from a Halloween party in October 2018 at China’s Chimelong Ocean Park.

Thus, the video recently viral on X is neither from Bangladesh nor does it show brutality against the Hindu minorities there. The video is from a Halloween party in China in 2018, where a human-like figure was used as a  prop.