FACT CHECK: Misleading video falsely shows religious hate crime, attack on Hindus in Bangladesh

A video recently circulated on social media claimed to show another incident of religious hate crimes against Hindus in Bangladesh. The video allegedly showed radical Islamists brutally attacking three Hindus in Bangladesh with an axe for cutting water hyacinths from the river. 

However, in its investigation, the PTI Fact Check Desk found that the video was unrelated to any religious hate crime incident. Instead, it depicted a violent clash that erupted over a property dispute between two cousins (belonging to the same community) in Bangladesh's Kaliganj area. An unrelated video was shared on social media to mislead viewers regarding religious hate crimes in Bangladesh.

Claim

An X user identified as '@HinduVoice_in' shared a video on March 31, allegedly showing another incident of a religious hate crime against Hindus in Bangladesh. The video depicted an alleged incident from Bangladesh's Gazipur district, where Islamists attacked three Hindu people with an axe for cutting water hyacinths from the river. All three victims were said to be in critical condition, fighting for their lives.

At the time of posting this article, the viral video had been viewed by 24.1K people. Here is the original video. 

#Bangladesh

In Kaliganj, #Gazipur district, Islamic radicals brutally attacked 3 Hindu minorities with an axe for the “crime” of cutting water hyacinths from the river.

All three victims are in critical condition, fighting for their lives. pic.twitter.com/Gni7TfjZOv

— Hindu Voice (@HinduVoice_in) March 31, 2025

Investigation

The Desk ran the viral video through the InVid tool and extracted multiple keyframes. Upon running one of the keyframes through Google Lens, the Desk found multiple users had shared it with similar claims.

Two such posts can be found here and here, with their archived versions available here and here, respectively.

In the next part of the investigation, to corroborate the claims made in the viral post, the Desk conducted a customized keyword search on Google and came across a report published by the Bangladesh-based Bengali-language newspaper, Dainik Desh Rupantor.

The report, published on March 31, 2025, provided extensive details of the incident, stating that it occurred due to a long-standing property dispute between two cousins named Ramcharan and Narayan in Bangladesh's Kaliganj area.

"On Sunday (March 30), Ramcharan and his son Jhantu Das attacked their cousins Narayan, Giribala, and Haradhan Chandra Das with axes in Kaliganj due to previous enmity over a land dispute," the report mentioned.

Here is the link to the report, along with a screenshot.

Subsequently, the Desk concluded that the video showing the attack against individuals with an axe does not depict an incident of religious hate crime against Hindus in Bangladesh.

CLAIM
Radical Islamists brutally attacked three Hindus in Bangladesh with an axe for cutting water hyacinths from the river.

FACT
The video actually shows a violent clash that erupted over a property dispute between two cousins (belonging to the same community) in Bangladesh's Kaliganj area.

CONCLUSION
Multiple social media users recently shared a video claiming it showed radical Islamists attacking three Hindus with an axe in Bangladesh over cutting water hyacinths from the river. In its investigation, the Desk found that the video did not depict a religious hate crime but instead showed a violent clash between two cousins (belonging to the same community) in Bangladesh's Kaliganj area over a long-standing property dispute.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from PTI)