Fact Check: Hindu man hanged to death in Bangladesh? No, viral claim is false

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Hyderabad: Amid the current political instability in Bangladesh, many reports of violence against the Hindu-minority communities have emerged.

A video of one such alleged communal atrocity showing a dead body hanging from a tree in public has gone viral. An X user shared the video and wrote, “Muslims follow the Quran. The Quran calls people of other religions as infidels and asks to kill them and exterminate them and collect Jaziya (hooligan tax) from them.” (Translated from Hindi) ( Archive )

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The man in the video is Mizan Sardar, a farmer from Bangladesh.

A keyword search of the video led us to a report from Jogo News24 titled, ‘Farmer’s hanging body recovered, chain and padlock around neck’, published on December 29, 2024. A screenshot of the video was featured in the report and the same chain and padlock were also seen on the person in the viral video.

According to the report, a farmer named Mizan Sardar (50) was found dead hanging from a mango tree in Ghatmaji Union of Madaripur Sadar Upazila on Saturday afternoon (December 28). The location is in Bangladesh.

According to the police version and accounts from the locals and family mentioned in the report, Mizan Sardar reportedly left his home around 10 pm on Friday (December 27) to attend a prayer meeting at Solaiman Matubbar’s residence near Tubia Bazar. However, he did not return home that night. On Saturday afternoon, a child passing by spotted his body chained and locked to a mango tree and screamed, drawing the attention of locals. Residents quickly alerted Sadar Police Station, who arrived at the scene, retrieved the body and sent it to the morgue at Madaripur Hospital for an autopsy.

We also found the incident reported on Protindercrime titled ‘The body of a farmer named Mizan Sardar was found hanging from a chain in Madaripur’, dated December 28, 2024. The report stated that Sardar’s body was discovered in the Purba Chiraipara village of Ghatmaji Union, under Madaripur Sadar Upazila, and suspicions were raised about the circumstances surrounding his death.

We also found similar reports on the same incident by Channel 24 and Dhaka Post.

Therefore, the claim that the video shows a Hindu man killed by Muslims is false. The man in the video is Mizan Sardar and no report mentioned any communal motive behind his death.