Old market fire incident circulates, claiming it shows an arson attack on a temple
A video is circulating on Facebook claiming that a mob of “Tawhidi Janata” set fire to a temple in Kushtia district, accusing it of insulting religion. But Dismislab’s fact-check shows that the original video is not from Kushtia but is from a fire incident that took place on 19 October this year in Satkhira district.
A personal profile on Facebook posted the video with the caption: “Just now… in Kushtia, Tawhidi Janata is setting fire to a temple, accusing it of insulting religion…” Several other personal profiles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) and groups (1, 2) posted the same video with the same claim. In the 30-second video, a structure behind a house-like building is seen burning. The Jamuna TV logo appears on the bottom left of the video.
Reverse image search to check the video’s source revealed a video published on Jamuna TV’s YouTube channel on October 19. The description reads, “A terrible fire at Satkhira’s Alipur Badamtala Bazar.” The segment from 38 seconds to 1:08 of the 1:35-minute video matches exactly with the video circulating with the false claim.
Keyword searches for further verification show that several news outlets published multiple (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) reports on the same incident at that time. Jamuna TV’s report published on October 19 was titled “Fire at Satkhira’s Alipur Badamtala Bazar.”
The report says that a fire broke out on October 19 at Alipur Badamtala Bazar in Satkhira Sadar. After receiving the alert, a fire service unit brought the blaze under control. Nurul Islam, the warehouse inspector of Satkhira Fire Service, said that after receiving the news, they reached the scene around 3:30 a.m. and were able to control the fire.
The photos used in the report match the circulated video. A report published on October 19 in Khulna Gazette states, “A terrible fire at the Alam Market in Alipur Badamtala Bazar in Satkhira has destroyed four shops. Traders suffered losses of Tk 40 lakh.” The report also states that the fire started in a hardware shop in the market.
In other words, the video actually shows the fire incident that occurred on October 19 in Satkhira. It has no connection with any arson attack on a temple in Kushtia.
