Old video circulated with claim of arson at Grameen Bank during an Awami League strike
A video posted on Facebook claims that Grameen Bank, founded by Dr Muhammad Yunus, was set on fire in front of Chawkbazar police station during today’s strike by the Awami League, a political party whose activities are banned. However, Dismislab’s fact-check has found that the video is more than a year old.
The video was posted on November 10 from a Facebook profile named Rokte Kena Ekattor (Seventy-One Bought with Blood). The 16-second video’s description reads, “Today, during the Awami League’s st’ri’ke, ar’so’n at Dr. Yunus’s Grameen Bank in front of Chawkbazar police station.”
Dismislab conducted a reverse image search using key frames from the video. This found a video published a year earlier on a Facebook page named Chattogram Update. The scenes in this 16-second video, published on October 12, 2025, match the recently circulated video completely. The post’s caption reads, “A sudden fire has broken out in Chawkbazar, Chattogram. This Chawkbazar is called the heart of coaching centers, and Islami Bank is located right next to it.”
For detailed verification, a relevant keyword search was conducted. It led to a fact-check published in Prothom Alo under the headline “False claim spread by circulating old fire photos and videos amid a fire.” In this report, published on October 20, 2025, Prothom Alo, citing Chattogram police, stated that the incident was caused by a short circuit in electric wires.
In other words, the video circulated on Facebook with the claim of arson at Grameen Bank in front of Chawkbazar police station during today’s Awami League strike is nearly a year old.
Incidentally, the banned organization Bangladesh Chhatra League called a nationwide strike on November 10, with an eight-point demand, including the withdrawal of the ban on the Awami League and Chhatra League. Dismislab has published multiple fact-check reports on false claims about scenes from this strike.
All social media captions, quotations, and news excerpts in this article have been translated into English from the languages in which they were originally posted or published.
