AI video falsely claims BNP activist arrested for arson attack on Grameen Bank
A video is spreading on social media claiming that police arrested a Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) activist for setting fire to a Grameen Bank branch office. But a fact-check by Dismislab found the video was created with artificial intelligence.
A Facebook post sharing the video claims, “Police are arresting the people who set fire to Grameen Bank. It was learned that they are BNP members.” In the video, a man holding a boom mic is heard saying, “Viewers, as you can see, police are arresting the people who set fire to Grameen Bank. It was learned they are BNP members. But why they are doing this is still unknown.”
The video shows a man in a white turban and panjabi being detained by police. One commenter wrote, “They are saying BNP, but this person looks like Jamaat. Can’t you see? Are you crazy?” Another wrote, “It was already announced that Jamaat/BNP people would carry out these attacks and then they would blame Awami League or Chhatra League.” Some users also commented that the video looks AI-generated. The video has been viewed 5.4 million times and shared 18,000 times so far.
Close observation revealed several inconsistencies. At the four-second mark of the 8-second video, the clothes of one person suddenly turn into a police uniform. At the 7-second mark, the uniform changes back to the original outfit. The color of the uniform does not match any current or past uniform of Bangladesh Police.
A watermark reading “Veo” appears on the right side of the video. Veo is a text-to-video AI model created by Google DeepMind. AI videos made with Veo are usually 8 seconds long, which matches the verified clip. An AI content check using Hive Moderation also shows a high likelihood that the video was created with AI.
Recently, several Grameen Bank branches across the country were set on fire after the announcement of the verdict against ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for crimes against humanity during the 2024 July uprising. But no news outlet has reported any arrests in these incidents.
This means the video claiming a BNP activist was arrested for setting fire to a Grameen Bank branch is not real; it was created with AI.
AI-generated videos made with Google’s Veo and other tools often spread on social media with false claims. Dismislab has previously published multiple fact-checks (1, 2, 3, 4) on similar AI-generated videos.
