Videos from India falsely linked to Bangladesh
Two videos have circulated on social media — one showing a group of people beating a man by the roadside, and the other showing a person striking someone with a spade in an open field. Social media posts claim that the footage depicts recent incidents in Bangladesh. However, verification shows that one of the videos is from Andhra Pradesh, India, and the other from Uttar Pradesh.
First video
A video was posted on social media platform X with the caption: “This is Yunus’s new Bangladesh, where people are murdered every day…” The video was shared on July 1 from a parody account named Zahid Zaha. It shows a group of individuals engaged in a fight, during which one person strikes another on the head with a spade. The post also includes the hashtag #YunusMustGo.
A reverse image search of the video reveals multiple social media posts claiming that it is from Pratapgarh, India (1, 2, 3). Further keyword searches led to a report published by Indian news outlet Dainik Bhaskar on June 29. The report, titled “In Pratapgarh, land dispute leads to spade attack, video: young man suffers head injury, five wounded; three suspects in custody,” details the incident. According to the report, the conflict took place in Bijhla village under Aspur Devsara police station. A land dispute between Hira Yadav and his neighbor Birendra Yadav escalated into violence, and members of Birendra Yadav’s side attacked Hira Yadav with a spade during the altercation. Hira Yadav sustained a head injury and fell unconscious at the scene. A total of five individuals from both sides were injured in the clash.
In summary, the video is not from Bangladesh but from Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Second video
On July 1, a Facebook profile named “Muktijoddha Chetona Bondhu” posted a video with the caption, “As a nation, we are ashamed.” The video shows several individuals beating a man by the roadside. While the caption does not explicitly claim the incident occurred in Bangladesh, many users in the comments appear to assume it did. One user commented, “Alas, Yunus’s Bangladesh! Where is the administration”. Another wrote, “Justice for this will be served in Bangladesh one day, InshaAllah.” The post has so far been shared 861 times.
To verify the video’s source, Dismislab found a report from Samayam Telugu, a Telugu-language media outlet in India, published on November 25, 2021. The report is titled, “Guntur: Brutality in broad daylight… video shared by Nara Lokesh.” It states that the video shows a group of people holding a man and beating him on a road divider in full public view. The incident took place on the outskirts of Piduguralla in Andhra Pradesh. According to the report, the victim, named Saida, believed the attack stemmed from an old enmity and a land dispute.
The same video was also shared by Nara Lokesh, a current minister in Andhra Pradesh and general secretary of the Telugu Desam Party, on his official X account, where he condemned the incident as a political attack.
In conclusion, this video is not from Bangladesh, but from Andhra Pradesh, India.
