A video of an attack on a Sufi shrine in Bangladesh is viral with the false claim that the incident took place at a Hindu temple in West Bengal.
BOOM found that the video is from Bangladesh’s Dinajpur district and has no relation to India. We further verified that the incident in the viral video is from February when an extremist Islamist group attacked a Sufi shrine, the Rahim Shah Baba Bhandari in Ghoraghat upazila over the organising of Urs—an event held to commemorate the death anniversary of a Sufi saint.
The viral video shows an angry mob vandalising the shrine using sticks and also setting fire to a part of the pandal, where the Urs was to be held.
The video has been shared with an overlaid Hindi text that translates to, “Look, Hindus, see what is happening in Hindu temples in Bengal. So much for brotherhood”
(Original text in Hindi: देखो हिन्दुओं बंगाल में हिन्दुओं के मंदिर में क्या हो रहा है. और निभाओ भाईचारा)
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Fact check
BOOM ran a related keyword search in Bengali and found a longer version of the same video, posted by a Bangladeshi Facebook page which detailed that an incident of vandalism was reported at the Rahim Baba shrine in Dinajpur district of Bangladesh.
We also found a live stream of the same incident by a Bangladeshi Facebook user on 28 February 2025.
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We then ran keyword searches for news reports on the incident and found a story published by Bangladeshi media outlet Prothom Alo on the same. According to Prothom Alo, on the afternoon of 28 February, several members of ‘Towhidi Janata’ organised a procession under the banner of the Sirate Mustaqim Parishad and vandalised the Rahim Shah Baba Bhandari Shrine in Ghoraghat Upazila, Dinajpur, setting it on fire.
The news report elaborated that the group was protesting against a Urs scheduled to take place from 2 to 4 March at the shrine, which the Towhidi Janata group alleged was a front to “consume drugs, listen to music and conduct obscene activities.”
‘Towhidi Janata’ is an extremist Islamic religious group in Bangladesh that has led several violent attacks in the country.
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Another Bangladeshi news outlet, Kalbela News, also published a video on 1 March 2024 reporting on the issue.
The report included visuals similar to those in the viral video.
BOOM Bangladesh also reached out to Mohammad Nazmul Haque, the officer-in-charge of Ghoraghat police station, for further verification of the video. Haque confirmed that it shows an attack in Bangladesh, not India.
Haque told BOOM Bangladesh, “The video is from the Rahim Shah Baba Bhandari shrine in Ghoraghat. It captures a hate-driven attack on the shrine by Towhidi Janata on February 28, 2025. There was no Hindu or communal angle to the incident.”
(Additional Reporting: Tausif Akbar, BOOM Bangladesh)
This story was originally published by BOOM as part of the Shakti Collective. Apart from the headline, excerpt and introduction, this story has not been edited by ThePrint staff.