Fact Check: Video of protestors blocking army vehicles is from Bangladesh, not West Bengal

Hyderabad: A video of armed skull cap-clad men with sticks blocking army vehicles is going viral on social media. Users claim that the video is from West Bengal in India.

A Twitter user shared the video with the caption, “The vehicle was stopped while taking an injured army soldier to the hospital in Bengal. This is the situation. Look at the future of your children, their number is 30 per cent (referring to the Muslim population). This is the situation because of a secular government supporting them. The enemies of Hindus are Hindus. (Translated from Telugu)”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the video is from Bangladesh.

On extracting the keyframes of the video, we found several clues which confirm that the video is from Bangladesh. While the people in the video can be heard speaking in Bangla, the vehicle registration number is written in Bangla. In India, the vehicle registration number is not written in regional languages.

Next, we noticed the logo of the Bangladesh Army on the vehicle and on the uniform of the army men in the video.

We also noticed ‘AMC’ in the Army’s uniform. Taking this cue, we ran a keyword search for “AMC and Bangladesh” and found that it stands for Army Medical Corps and is one of the largest and most advanced healthcare systems in Bangladesh

.Then we found the same video posted on a Facebook account on March 29, 2021. It is mentioned in the caption that the video is from Bangladesh.

Several others have also shared the video using the hashtag #Hefazat #BangladeshArmy.

National Herald, on March 26, 2021, reported violent clashes had broken out between the police and the supporters of the Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam in Dhaka and Chittagong after the cops thwarted an attempt to launch an anti-Modi protest.

Hence, we conclude that the viral video is from Bangladesh. The claim that the video is from West Bengal is false.