Facebook campaign to destroy Ram idol violates Meta Policies, yet no action
(All captions, quotes and news report excerpts in this article have been translated from Bangla into English.)
A young man stands atop a broken idol. He is armed with a sharp weapon and dressed in a skullcap and tunic. AI-generated images of this kind are being posted on Facebook as part of a campaign calling for the destruction of a Ram idol. The messaging asserts that no idol will be permitted to remain in public in “Muslim Bengal.” Some posts use AI-generated images to depict scenes of idols being smashed with hammers, accompanied by explicit calls to demolish them. In other posts, claims that a mosque thousands of years old lies beneath a temple are being used to demand that the temple be torn down. Those posts also use AI-generated images.
The campaign centers on a Ram idol under construction at the premises of the Shri Shri Radha Govinda and Kali Temple, located in Madhoromchandropur village of Hossainpur Union, Palashbari Upazila (sub-district), Gaibandha — a district in northern Bangladesh. The construction had been the subject of discussion for some time. In recent weeks, there has been a wave of online posts calling and campaigning for the demolition of the under-construction idol. Although posts of this kind directly conflict with Meta’s community standards, a keyword search covering the period from June 4 to June 11 uncovered 308 separate Facebook posts explicitly calling for the idol’s destruction.
How the campaign has been conducted
On June 7, a Facebook post stated, “On the land in Rangpur where the temple is being built, traces of a mosque thousands of years old have been found beneath the ground.” The image accompanying the post showed an under-construction Ram temple above ground and a mosque beneath the surface. The image was created using AI. The caption demanded that the temple or idol be demolished and the mosque restored in its place. Using a relevant keyword search, Dismislab found 123 posts carrying the identical image and caption.
On June 5, a personal Facebook profile published a post showing a person standing atop an under-construction Ram idol while holding a white flag bearing the Islamic declaration of faith, the Kalima. Text inscribed on the image read, “We demand the removal of this idol.” The post’s description stated, “Just as the Ram Mandir was built in India by demolishing the Babri Mosque, such a large idol of Ram cannot be allowed to stand in this country.” The post also contained an explicit call to violence, stating, “If you see a dog, don’t beat it. If you see a Ram Sena member, don’t let them go.” Using a relevant keyword search, Dismislab found 65 posts carrying the identical image.
On June 9, another personal profile published a post in which the severed head of an idol was shown lying on the ground. Multiple individuals wearing white skullcaps and tunics were depicted smashing the idol, with one person standing on the idol’s head and others on its body. The logo of Google’s AI tool, Gemini, was visible in the lower right corner of the image. The caption on the posts read, “Sitting quietly won’t do — it needs to be blown up like this.” Using a relevant keyword search, Dismislab found 20 posts carrying the identical image.
A nearly identical post was also found showing two individuals wearing similar skullcaps and tunics — one standing on the broken head of an idol while holding a hammer, and another seated with the Kalima written on a white cloth across his chest and a black flag bearing the Kalima in hand. The Gemini logo was again visible in the lower right corner of the image. The caption of the post, published on June 7, read: “Just as we destroyed the idols of the Awami religion, we will also demolish Ram’s idol, inshallah.” Using a relevant keyword search, Dismislab found 13 Facebook posts carrying the identical image.
On June 8, a Facebook account under the name “Alem Olama Oikko Parishad” (meaning Council of Islamic Scholars’ Unity) published a photo card featuring an image of a Ram idol alongside photographs of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari. Text on the photo card read, “India wants to incite riots between Hindus and Muslims in Bangladesh.” Part of the post’s caption stated, “The Tawhidi people of Bangladesh should immediately smash this enormous Ram idol at the Ram Mandir to pieces.” Using a relevant keyword search, Dismislab found nine more posts carrying the identical image and description.
A personal Facebook profile also published a post showing a person with a sharp weapon, dressed in a skullcap and tunic, standing atop a broken idol. The caption read, “No idol will be allowed to remain in public in Muslim Bengal. Inshallah.” A keyword search found nearly 30 posts uploaded from personal profiles — each accompanied by the user’s own photograph — carrying the identical caption.
On June 8, a personal profile shared a photograph of another under-construction idol and published a post describing it as a harbinger of a conspiracy against the country. A keyword search found 48 posts with the identical caption calling for the demolition of an under-construction idol of Vishnu in Tangail, another district in central Bangladesh.
What Meta’s policies say
Under Meta’s Violence and Incitement policy, it is prohibited to post any content that includes “threats to take up arms, bring weapons to a location, or use force to enter a location (including but not limited to places of worship, educational establishments, polling places, or locations used for the counting of votes and administration of elections); or threats to enter a location where there is a credible risk of imminent violence.” The images and captions being used to build the “idol destruction” narrative directly violate this policy.
How the controversy begun
The discussion began on June 2, when a Facebook account under the name “Shri Haridas Chandra Tarani Das” published a post soliciting financial donations. According to news reports, the individual known as Haridas is a defendant in a fraud case. Law enforcement agencies had arrested him in 2022 on charges of embezzling money under a false identity (1, 2, 3).
Following Haridas’s post, on June 4 multiple accounts published critical posts about the matter (1, 2, 3, 4). An account under the name “Al Abrar” claimed that the construction of the idol in a border area posed a threat to national security. The same account also published a post using an AI-generated video to depict a fabricated scene of the under-construction idol collapsing. The “Al Abrar” account has a documented history of spreading communally incendiary content on Facebook, as has been reported in previous Dismislab reports.
Online discussion around the matter continued to grow. Online activist Pinaki Bhattacharya — who has more than 3 million followers on Facebook and more than 4 million subscribers on YouTube — joined the conversation. In a post on June 5, he raised questions about the proportion of the Hindu population in the area, the source of funding for the construction, its geographical location and the presence of the Indian Assistant High Commissioner at the inauguration of the temple.
Meanwhile, a post from the X account of Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, editor of the Weekly Blitz, stated that a long-term plan existed to construct a total of 144 religious structures at the site — including idols of Ram, Krishna and Shiva — at a total cost of approximately 220 million taka (roughly $1.8 million). This information further amplified online discussion about the construction of religious structures at the site.
Amid this wave of social media commentary, on June 10 a press conference and a human chain protest were held locally, demanding the suspension and removal of the idol’s construction. On the same day, a communal harmony rally was also held at the initiative of the Palashbari Upazila administration in Gaibandha, according to regional news outlets. On June 11, an announcement was made that construction work on the idol had been temporarily suspended.
