Following deadly protests in India’s West Bengal state over legislation to change how Muslim-owned properties are managed, an old clip resurfaced in posts that falsely claimed it shows Muslims vandalising Hindu households. The video previously circulated in November 2024 after a mob attacked a shrine in Bangladesh.
“In West Bengal, 12 villages were evacuated, and 150 acres of Hindu farmland were destroyed. Animals, trees, vehicles, bungalows are being burnt by Muslims,” reads the Hindi-language caption to a Facebook video shared on April 13, 2025.
“Why doesn’t Mamata Banerjee respond to this,” it adds, referring to West Bengal’s chief minister. “Hindus, you must speak up.”
The video, viewed over 260,000 times, shows a group of people wearing skull caps and carrying sticks marching through fields and past a small reservoir. They are later seen pelting a structure with stones and appear to have set it on fire.
Screenshot of the false Facebook post, captured on April 17, 2025
The video surfaced alongside similar claims on Facebook and X in mid-April after three people were killed and 118 arrested in protests that erupted in West Bengal over the passage of a bill to reform hugely wealthy Muslim land-owning organisations (archived link).
According to India’s ruling Hindu nationalist government, the legislation will boost transparency around land management by holding powerful Waqf boards accountable.
The political opposition has called the bill a polarising “attack” on India’s Muslim minority, and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party of trying to win favour with its right-wing Hindu base.
The circulating video, however, was not filmed in West Bengal.
Bangladesh shrine
A reverse image search on Google of the video’s keyframes found it had been shared on Facebook on November 28, 2024 (archived link).
Its Bengali-language caption reads: “Sherpur Darbar Sharif came under attack, vandalised, looted and torched.”
Screenshot comparison of the video used in the false post (left) and the Facebook video from November 2024 (right)
Bangladeshi news outlets reported at the time that violent clashes erupted after a group of Muslims targeted a shrine in the Sherpur district over claims of “anti-Islamic activities” (archived here and here).
Local newspaper Prothom Alo reported that one person was killed and several others injured, citing figures provided by authorities (archived link).
Details from the reports led to an image of a reservoir and its surrounding railing on Google Maps geotagged to the Sherpur district that corresponds to the body of water seen in the falsely shared video (archived link).
Screenshot comparison of the reservoir seen in the falsely shared video (left) and the image from Google Maps (right)
AFP has debunked other misinformation about the unrest in India’s West Bengal state.
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