Old Video from Bangladesh Shared with a Communal Narrative amid Violence in Haryana

The state of Haryana witnessed several incidents of communal violence this week. The violence that started in the Mewat region later spread to other regions resulting in the loss of lives and property. 

As these reports of violence emerged, a video was shared on Twitter showing a Muslim mob brutally assaulting a helpless man on a street. The video was shared in context of the recent communal violence in Mewat. 

In the tweet given below, a columnist Gopal Goswami with a warning is sharing the video that ‘if Hindus do not wake up after Mewat incident then they will have to suffer the same fate’. 

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However, when we investigated the video, we found out that the video is of an old incident from Bangladesh. Here is the fact check.

Fact Check

We did a Google reverse image search on some screenshots of the video. From the results, we came to know that the video is old. We found a fact-check by Jansatta published in 2017 that debunked misinformation that the video was from Kashmir. The video is of a daylight murder that took place in Comilla, Bangladesh on 1 April 2017. The victim seen in the video was a 24-year-old murder accused Abu Sayeed. Some miscreants at Gouripur Bazaar of Daudkandi upazila in Comilla stabbed him to death.  The video was also shared with a fake narrative in 2019 as well.

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The above tweet proves that the video is not of the recent violence in Haryana. Multiple fact-checks were done on the video in 2019 as well. These fact-check articles proved that the video was indeed from Bangladesh. We also found this video posted on Facebook by a Bangladeshi user in 2017 who says this video shows some people killing the accused in the murder case of ‘Monir Chairman’.

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We also found a post by a Facebook user debunking another fake narrative on this video in 2017. The post debunks a misinformation that Hindu man was lynched by a Muslim mob. The post says that Ali Sayeed, an accused in the murder case of Chairman of Zearkandi union parishad under Titas upzila in Comilla, Bangladesh. The post also shares the screenshot of a YouTube video, which now appears to be deleted.

We searched for news articles on this incident and found some reports by local media. As per a report, the deceased Ali Sayeed was accused of murdering the chairman of 8 Zearkandi Union Parishad, Monir Hossain Sarkar. Sarkar was murdered in November 2016 while he was on his way to attend a court case. 

Conclusion

Thus, the video being shared on social media with reference to the recent communal violence in Mewat is more than 6 years old. Moreover, the video has been fact-checked several times in the past as well. The video is circulating since 2017 with different false narratives and has resurfaced now amid the communal tensions in Haryana.