Fake reports being spread about protesters in Bangladesh to whip up anti-Muslim sentiments
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — Amid political turmoil in Bangladesh, Hindutva supporters in India are engaged in spreading spiteful and malicious reports of attacks on minorities in the neighbouring country to whip up anti-Muslim sentiments back home.
On Monday, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to resign and flee the country after thousands of anti-government protesters stormed her official residence in the capital city of Dhaka. The protesters also resorted to large-scale violence, arson and vandalism against security forces, officials and government properties. Meanwhile, there were also reports of attacks on minorities.
In the midst of all this, individuals aligned with the Hindutva ideology started posting unrelated videos and information of rape, attacks and arson by passing them off as attacks on the minorities in Bangladesh. While sharing these pieces of misinformation, they also made provocative remarks against Muslims and Islam.
BJP MLA Nitesh Rane from Maharashtra even went on to make extremely provocative remarks saying “chun chunk kay marenge” to the Bangladeshis in India. He later deleted the post after a huge clamour for action against him.
“If Hindus r targeted and killed in Bangladesh…why shud we allow even one Bangladeshi to breathe here.. Hum bhi chun chun ke marenge.. Hindu lives matter,” said Rane.
Prominent fact-checker Mohammed Zubair has revealed the truth of the videos passed off as incidents of attacks in Bangladesh. Several pro-Hindutva handles posted a video of a gangrape happening in the Karnataka capital of Bengaluru in 2021 as protesters raping a Dalit woman in Bangladesh.
While posting the video, Deepak Sharma, infamous for spreading hatred against Muslims, falsely claimed that the Dalit woman was raped 40 times while protesters in Bangladesh chanted Allah-o-Akbar.
X (Twitter) handle हम लोग We The People (@ajaychauhan41) shared the same images claiming, “Another horrific incident is coming to light from Bangladesh. Jihadis are raping Hindu women all over Bangladesh. These protests started as “student protests” and have now turned into Hindu genocide.”
Among others who shared the photo/s with the same claim are verified X users Amitabh Chaudhary (@MithilaWaala), Baba Banaras (@RealBababanaras), Dev Anand Simha (@Narsimha_dev), Randomsena (@randomsena), Kanishka Dadhich (@KanishkaDadhich), The Abhishek Tiwary Show (@atsshow7), Gems of Shorts (@Warlock_Shabby), Preet Sirohi (@BhaiPreetSingh) and others.
An X handle Baba Banaras claimed that six Hindus including two minors were raped and burnt alive in Bangladesh’s Rangpur. However, a fact-checker Sohanur Rahman pointed out that no such incident happened in Rangpur.
“Fake Alert: There were no incidents of rape in Rangpur, and no women were burnt alive,” said Rahman.
Some handles claimed that a temple was burnt while posting a video of an arson incident in Bangladesh. A person named Sanjoy Deb present near the temple said that the temple is safe and a shop in front of the temple was burnt.
Some pro-Hindutva handles Mr Sinha, Deepak Sharma and others posted a video claiming that an old Hindu man was lynched and hanged in Bangladesh. However, it was found that the victim was a Muslim named Shahidul Islam, leader of the Awami League.
