Bangladesh: Zee, News 24 ran visuals of restaurant up in flames in Satkhira as Hindu temple burnt down

Ever since Bangladesh was plunged into an unprecedented crisis with erstwhile Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster on August 5, incidents of attacks on minority Hindus have been reported from several parts of the country. An interim government led by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus as its chief adviser was sworn in on August 8.

X handle Visegrád 24 tweeted a video on August 6 of a building on fire and described it as a Hindu temple. (Archived link)

BREAKING:

The ethnic violence continues in Bangladesh.

Islamist have set a Hindu business on fire pic.twitter.com/RsJXRET74s

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) August 6, 2024

Zee News Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh, too, described the viral video as a Hindu temple set on fire. (Archived link)

News24 also described the building seen in the viral video as a Hindu temple in one of its reports. (Archived link)

Apart from this, a number of users including Sunanda Roy, Hindu Voice, Random Sena amplified the video and claimed that Islamic fundamentalists had set fire to a Hindu temple.

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Fact Check

We found a tweet by Bangladeshi fact-checker Shohanur Rahman in which he replied to a user stating that the building seen in the viral video was not a Hindu temple but a restaurant in Satkhira, Bangladesh. Along with this, he also attached two screenshots which depicted a sign reading ‘রাজ প্রাসাদ কফি শপ এন্ড রেস্টুরেন্ট কলারোয়া সাতক্ষীরা’ (Raj Prasad Coffee Shop & Restaurant Kalaroa Satkhira).

Fake Alert❌

This isn’t a temple, it’s actually a restaurant in Satkhira. pic.twitter.com/wmfYZ0fknO

— Shohanur Rahman (@Sohan_RSB) August 6, 2024

We then performed a keyword search in Bangla on Facebook. This led us to more information related to this on a Facebook page named Kalaroa Speech. The page completely denied the viral claim of the burning building being a Hindu temple and clarified that it was not a temple that was ablaze, but a restaurant.

When we searched about this restaurant on Google, we found a picture of it on Google Maps, as seen in the visual below.

When we performed another keyword search using terms related to this restaurant on YouTube, we found several different vlogs depicting the restaurant. In other words, the building that caught fire in the viral video was not a temple, but a restaurant.

We also found that the restaurant was owned by Kazi Asadujjaman Shahzada, a leader of the Jubo League, the youth wing of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League.

To sum it up, multiple social media users shared a video of a restaurant set ablaze in Bangladesh and falsely claimed that it was a Hindu temple. This unverified story was also promoted by news outlets like News24 and Zee News Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh.

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