Daily Sun uses old Dinajpur video to claim unrest at Aftabnagar electricity office
News outlet Daily Sun recently posted a video on social media platform Facebook claiming that local residents vandalized an electricity office in Aftabnagar in protest against 24-hour load shedding. However, Dismislab’s fact-check found that no such incident occurred, and the video is from an old incident in the Aftabganj area of Nababganj upazila in Dinajpur.
On September 13, Daily Sun posted the video (archive) from the Facebook page of its Bangla edition. The post read, “24-hour load shedding, locals vandalize electricity office in Aftabnagar.” The hashtags attached to the post mentioned Aftabnagar and Daily Sun, as well as Dhaka Power.
The 28-second video shows an angry crowd vandalizing an electric pole and a building. As of the publication of this report, the post had received nearly 4,500 reactions, been shared 950 times, and been viewed more than 150,000 times.
The video was also spread with the same claim from several Facebook profiles (1, 2, 3) and a few Facebook pages (1, 2).
To verify the claim, Dismislab conducted a reverse image search using various keyframes of the video. The search found a post from a page named “Sotyer Kontoshor” (Voice of Truth). The video attached to that post showed the same scene. The caption of the video, posted on August 11, read, “24 hours without power, public protest and vandalism at Aftabganj electricity office.”
Another video of the same incident was also posted on August 10 from the Facebook page of news outlet “Amar Sangbad.” The caption read, “Va’ng’chur [vandalism] at Aftabganj electricity office in protest of load shedding.”
A search using relevant keywords found a report published in Prothom Alo on August 13. According to the report, a group of people attacked and vandalized a substation of Palli Bidyut Samity-2 in the Aftabganj area of Nababganj upazila, Dinajpur. The attack took place at 6pm on Monday, August 10, amid complaints of frequent load shedding and excessive electricity bills. This report also confirms that the incident took place in Aftabganj, Dinajpur, not Aftabnagar.
