Video of Indian temple ritual falsely linked to Hindu attacks in Bangladesh
The footage, however, was filmed in neighbouring India's West Bengal state. It shows villagers dismantling a statue of Hindu deity Kali as a part of a traditional ritual, one of the organisers told AFP
Following reports of attacks against Hindus in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, a video spread in social media posts that falsely claimed it showed a Muslim mob vandalising an idol of a Hindu goddess in the South Asian country.
The footage, however, was filmed in neighbouring India's West Bengal state. It shows villagers dismantling a statue of Hindu deity Kali as a part of a traditional ritual, one of the organisers told AFP.
"Yesterday in Bangladesh, Muslims attacked Kalibari i.e. Kali temple and destroyed the idols of Mother Kali and all the Hindu gods and goddesses," read a Hindi-language Facebook post that shared the video on 2 December.
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"The Hindu devotees present inside the temple were killed. More than 20 Hindus are badly injured. But the whole world is silent on the massacre of Hindus in Bangladesh."
The video -- shared by a Facebook user with more than 111,000 followers -- shows a group of men tearing down a statue.
Kali, usually depicted as a four-armed lady in blue with a long tongue sticking out from red lips, is worshipped by Hindus as the goddess of death, destruction and time.
The video made the rounds on Facebook and X following attacks against Hindus in Bangladesh over their perceived support for the government of Sheikh Hasina, the autocratic leader who was toppled in August in a student-led revolution.
The arrest of Bangladeshi monk Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, who called for the protection of Hindus, sparked clashes with security forces in November in which one person was killed.
But there have been no official reports indicating the incident described in the posts -- a purported massacre of Hindu devotees in a temple in Bangladesh -- actually occurred.
West Bengal ritual
Moreover, a reverse image search of a keyframe from the video, combined with keyword searches, found it was filmed in India and not Bangladesh as online posts claimed.
Longer footage of the same scene but taken from a different angle was shared on Facebook on 27 November.
Bengali-language caption to the longer footage said it showed a ritual involving the Hindu goddess Kali in Sultanpur, a village in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, which borders Bangladesh.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the circulating video (left) and the longer footage from Facebook (right):
AFP was able to confirm the location of the scene by comparing the longer footage with an image of the Kali temple geotagged on Google Maps in Sultanpur village.
Below are screenshot comparisons between scenes from the footage (left) and the geotagged image (right) with corresponding elements highlighted:
Debashish Mondal, a member of the local Sultanpur Kiranmoyi Pathagar Club that organised the ritual, refuted claims portraying the video as sectarian violence.
"This is a well-established custom that occurs after every 12 years and many people participate in the event. There was no communal angle in it," Mondal told AFP.
"The Kali idol is broken into many pieces and then immersed in the water," he explained.
Bengali newspaper Dainik Statesman reported on the idol immersion on 21 October and featured a picture of an idol of goddess Kali with a background similar to the one seen in the footage.
