Video from Bangladesh peddled as violence in Bengal during assembly elections

Social media is flooded with misinformation related to the ongoing state assembly elections in West Bengal. Fact Crescendo Hindi and Fact Crescendo Bangla has been actively debunking such viral claims on social media. Amidst this, a video of protesters stopping an armed forces’ is circulating on social media claiming that it is from West Bengal where people are polling their votes. The video shows protesters with sticks obstructing a defence forces vehicle, who in turn asked to be allowed to go claiming they are escorting an ambulance with a patient. After checking the ambulance, the protesters get enraged realising that there is no patient inside the ambulance. 

Fact Crescendo received this video for verification on our WhatsApp Fact Line number- 9049053770. Users claimed that this video shows visuals from the ongoing elections in West Bengal.

The caption of the post states “polling situation in West Bengal Muslim dominated areas.”

Facebook Post | Archive Link 

Fact Check- 

We started our investigation by carefully observing the video and breaking in into small key frames with the help of InVid-We Verify tool. We found that the vehicle number registration is written in Bangla. One can also hear Bangladesh native Bengali being spoken among the people in the video.

We also found a sticker of a logo on the vehicle which can also be seen on the uniform of the army men seen in the video.

Further we also noticed that the words “AMC” is also written on the uniform of the army. Upon searching AMC and Bangladesh as keywords on Google we found that AMC stands for Army Medical Corps in Bangladesh. 

Upon a keyword search we also found the logo seen on the vehicle and army officials uniform on the official website of Bangladesh Army. Thus, we can verify that the vehicle and the army officers are from Bangladesh and not from India.

We ran a relevant keyword search on Facebook and found the original LIVE video that was uploaded by a Facebook user named HM Al Amin at 2.27 pm on 28 March 2021. According to the caption on the video, it was shot at Hathazari, Bangladesh.

The user has uploaded another Live video from the protests from the same day where people can be seen blocking the road by setting wood on fire. The person shooting the video can be heard saying, “The protests are very peaceful right now. Jamaats are present in turns to carry on the protests.”

Next, we tried to search for relevant news reports related to the protest held in Hathazari. According to the Daily Star, protests erupted in Chittagong as Narendra Modi visited the country for two days in March. Four people were killed in clashes between Hefazat-e-Islam activists and police during the protest rally in Chittagong’s Hathazari.

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Conclusion- Fact Crescendo found that the viral post on social media is False. A video of protesters stopping an armed forces’ vehicle in Bangladesh’s Hathazari, during protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit, is being shared with a false claim that the incident is from West Bengal where currently polls are being held. The above-mentioned viral video has no relation with the ongoing West Bengal elections.