An old photo of arms recovery shared as a recent seizure of Pakistani grenades in Dhaka
A photo has spread on Facebook claiming that RAB-10 recovered four Pakistani grenades from Dhaka’s Demra. But Dismislab’s fact-check shows that the photo is actually from a joint forces operation in Cox’s Bazar’s Ukhiya upazila on November 8, 2024.
The photo was posted from a personal Facebook profile with the caption, “RAB-10 has recovered four Pakistani grenades from Demra.” The post has been shared more than 3,700 times. Ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, shared the photo on his verified Facebook page and wrote, “Under #Yunus’s rule, #Pakistan-made grenades have been recovered from #terrorists in #Bangladesh.” After that, several personal Facebook profiles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) posted the same photo and commented in support of the claim made in the original caption. However, Sajeeb Wazed Joy later deleted his post.
Dismislab conducted a reverse image search and found a report by The Daily Manabkantha. The circulated photo appears in that report. The report says, “RAB-10 recovered four abandoned grenades from the Demra area of the capital. The grenades were recovered on Saturday, the agency said in a statement. The statement said the grenades were recovered from the Sarulia area of Demra. RAB said they would provide details after the operation.” However, the report did not mention the source of the photo.
Further verification through reverse image search brings up a Daily Ittefaq report published on November 10, 2024. The same circulated photo appears in this one-year-old report as well. The caption reads, “Joint forces recovered military-grade grenades from Palongkhali Union in Cox’s Bazar. Photo: Ittefaq.”
The report says, “In a joint operation in the Balukhali Moragachh Tola area of Palongkhali Union in Cox’s Bazar’s Ukhiya upazila, the joint forces recovered a large number of abandoned explosives. The recovered explosives include 4 RG hand grenades (3 olive-colored and 1 dark olive-colored) and 5 reddish-brown M-67 hand grenades.” The report also says that Ukhiya Police Station’s Officer-in-Charge, Arif Hossain, confirmed the recovery. He said that necessary legal steps are being taken.
Keyword searches also brought up several reports (1, 2, 3, 4) from last year. All of these reports show the same circulated photo.
For context, on 29 November, RAB recovered four abandoned grenades from Sarulia in Demra.
Multiple news outlets reported (1, 2, 3, 4) this incident. None of these reports mentions anything about Pakistan in relation to the grenades.
A Prothom Alo report on 30 November said, “RAB has recovered four abandoned grenades from Sarulia in Demra of the capital. RAB said that these grenades were looted from a police station during the anti-discrimination student movement. A team of RAB-10 carried out the operation.”
The report also said that RAB-10’s Additional Superintendent of Police (Media), Tapash Karmakar, stated, “Acting on confidential information, a raid was conducted, and around 8:00 p.m., the grenades were recovered from a place called Gorur Haat in Sarulia, Demra. They were in an abandoned state. The recovered grenades will be handed over to the Demra Police Station.”
The Daily Star’s report on this had the headline, “Four grenades recovered in Demra.” That report used a photo of the grenades recovered on 29 November. The caption said, “The recovered grenades.” The grenades in that photo do not match the grenades in the circulated photo.
In other words, although RAB did recover grenades from Demra on 29 November, the circulated photo has no connection to that incident, and the photo is more than a year old. Notably, using unrelated photos to spread false claims on Facebook is nothing new. A Dismislab fact-check previously showed how an unrelated photo was shared, claiming that Jamaat and Shibir activists were arrested with weapons.
