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| - Fact Check: These Bangladeshi women forced to do sit-ups are NOT Hindus
Two videos were shared with a communal twist, falsely stating that they depict atrocities against Hindus in Bangladesh.
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India Today Fact Check
Both videos show Mulsim Chhatra League members being harassed. These clips do not show the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh.
As the political situation in Bangladesh continues to remain volatile, videos allegedly showing atrocities against Hindu women in the country have gone viral on social media.
One video shows a woman dressed in black being confronted by a crowd. The woman was manhandled and made to do sit-ups. Her face was also covered with yellow powder and she was pushed into a small body of water.
One Facebook user shared the video and wrote, "A group of Muslims capture a Hindu girl in Bangladesh, insult her and then drown her Where are the eyes of the world? Save Hindus from Genocide in Bangladesh," was shared alongside this video.
Another viral video shows a woman dressed in brown being made to do sit-ups by a mob. The posts claimed that this was Jyotika Basu-Chatterjee, who used to run a humanitarian organisation, and that she was targeted for being Hindu.
NEWJ also shared this video on X with a caption indicating the same.
India Today Fact Check found that both women are Muslim. These videos do not show the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh.
FIRST VIDEO
Upon reverse-searching keyframes from the viral video, we came across a video of the same incident uploaded to YouTube on August 8. The caption suggested that the woman was a leader of the Chhatra League, the student wing of Sheikh Hasina's party Awami League.
Further searches led to another video of the same incident, showing the woman who had confronted the woman in black, displaying items recovered from her purse. Among the items was an identity card from the Upazila Parishad elections, where she served as a polling agent. This featured her name written in Bangla, Afsana Ibad.
This proves that this woman was not Hindu.
SECOND VIDEO
A reverse search of its keyframes took us to the same clip (though laterally inverted), shared by a Bangladeshi journalist Mahdy Hasan Talha’s Facebook page on July 17. The caption of this video roughly translates to, "Sagarika Akhter, leader of Eden Women's College Chhatra League, tried to escape, but students caught her and made her do sit-ups."
Subsequently, we contacted Tanvir Mahatab Abir, a Dhaka-based fact-checker, who provided us with a photocopy of Sagarika Akhter's first-year admit card, which listed both her name and her quota as “freedom fighter”.
Tanvir also asserted that none of these videos show any Hindu women being tortured; instead, both depict anger against Chhatra League leaders who allegedly abused their power during Sheikh Hasina's regime.
Therefore, it is safe to conclude that both incidents were falsely given a communal spin.
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