As lethal protests broke out in India over laws to vary how Muslim-owned properties are managed, social media customers shared an previous clip falsely claiming it depicted Muslims assaulting Hindus within the jap state of West Bengal. However the video was printed in information experiences in 2024 that mentioned it reveals a land dispute-related violence within the northern state of Rajasthan.
“In Murshidabad, West Bengal, there have been protests in opposition to the Waqf board that concerned arson,” says a Hindi-language Fb publish shared on April 13, 2025, which features a clip that reveals a number of males throwing stones at a gaggle of individuals.
The boards management properties gifted by Muslim charitable endowments.
“Three Hindus of the identical household had been additionally crushed to dying”, the publish goes on to say.
“Bengal has turn out to be like Bangladesh, jihadists are breaking into the homes of the poor Hindus,” it continues, referring to the turbulent religious relations within the neighbouring nation that has left many non secular minorities within the Muslim-majority nation afraid of persecution (archived link).
Screenshot of the false publish, taken on April 15, 2025
Related claims had been shared alongside the identical video on Facebook and X after three folks had been killed in lethal protests that erupted in West Bengal over the passage of a invoice to reform vastly rich Muslim land-owning organisations (archived link).
In keeping with the ruling Hindu nationalist authorities, it can enhance transparency round land administration by holding accountable highly effective Waqf boards.
The opposition, nevertheless, has known as the invoice a polarising “assault” on India’s Muslim minority. They accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Occasion of attempting to win favour with its right-wing Hindu base.
However the video isn’t associated to the protests.
A reverse image search of keyframes on Google discovered India In the present day published the clip on April 9, 2024 in a video report (archived link).
It mentioned masked males tried to enter the house of the household of 5 within the western Indian state of Rajasthan and pelted them with stones. Police suspected the assault is said to a land dispute, and two folks had been arrested over the incident.
Screenshot comparability of the false publish video (left) and India In the present day’s video
Different outlets additionally published the clip in experiences in regards to the assault (archived here, here and here).
A senior officer of Jaipur Police, Kavendra Sagar, instructed AFP on April 14 that each events within the incident had been from the Hindu neighborhood and “there was no communal angle”.
“The accused had been instantly arrested and despatched to jail,” he mentioned.
