Bangladeshi video misrepresented as scenes of protests in India
A video was circulated on Facebook with the claim that it is a live broadcast of protests in India. However, a fact-check found that the video is not from India but from the Shahbagh area of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.
The video was posted on October 14 by a Facebook page named ‘Golpo – গল্প’. The post was captioned, “Live broadcast directly from the protests in India at night.” The hashtags Indian Politics and Protest in India were also used. By the time this report was published, approximately 2,500 people had reacted to the video, and the post had been shared more than 200 times.
However, the scenes in the video did not appear to match the claim. The hour-long video shows the national flag of Bangladesh, a Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) bus, and a signboard bearing the words “Pubali Bank Limited, Shahbag Avenue Branch”.
To verify the claim, an attempt was made to identify the geographical location of the scenes shown in the video. For this purpose, the buildings and surrounding environment visible in the footage were compared with Google Maps Street View. The comparison revealed similarities with scenes from Shahbagh, Dhaka.
A signboard reading “Pubali Bank Limited, Shahbag Avenue Branch” visible in the video was compared with Google Maps Street View of the Shahbagh area, which made it possible to identify the location of the structure. The national flag of Bangladesh and a BRTC bus are also visible in the video. These visual elements are consistent with Bangladesh’s landmarks.
In other words, the video circulated with the claim that it was a live broadcast of protests in India is actually from the Shahbagh area of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.
