On April 5, the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2025, which was cleared by both Houses of Parliament, received the nod from President Droupadi Murmu, making it a law. Soon, protests erupted across several regions in the country against the Act. In West Bengal's Murshidabad, these protests took a dark turn with widespread violence, vandalism and looting. Three individuals died in these clashes, including a Hindu father-son duo, who were allegedly killed in a communal clash, and a Muslim man, who succumbed to injuries from police gunfire. Amidst these tensions, a video of a man in a helmet carrying a pistol went viral on social media. The video also shows another individual giving the man in a helmet what appears to be a bullet, which he uses to reload his weapon. Users claimed that the visual was from West Bengal.
X user Sunanda Roy 👑 (@SaffronSunanda), who has amplified misinformation in the past that Alt News has fact checked, shared the above-mentioned clip on April 15. The post has over 7.5 lakh views and was reshared over 8,100 times at the time this article was written. (Archive)
X account Kreately.in (@KreatelyMedia) also shared the same video on April 15. Their post received over 71,000 views and has been reshared over 2,900 times. (Archive)
Readers should note that this page has, in the past, disseminated misleading information and content that could incite hatred.
Several other users shared the viral clip, claiming that it depicts the current situation in West Bengal.
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Fact Check
To verify the authenticity of this claim, we broke down the clip into several key frames and ran a reverse image search on a few of them. This led us to a longer YouTube video posted by Bangladesh-based news channel Somoy National on July 17, 2024. The title of the video is in Bengali, which translates to: "Who is this young man brandishing a weapon on a public road in Chattogram?" Chattogram or Chittagong is a city in Bangladesh.
The initial part of the YouTube video shows the same man with a pistol in his hand. A few other men can be seen with him with thick sticks in their hands, throwing stones. The shorter clip that went viral appears at the 00:28-minute mark.
To be sure that the viral video is indeed from Chittagong, we geolocated the area in the viral clip and found that it was 70 Hathazari Rd, Chittagong, Bangladesh. Below is a comparison.
We also came across several news reports by Bangladesh-based news outlets from July last year on the incident. A report by Bangla Tribune, published on July 18, 2024, had a screengrab of the now-viral video. The article, titled 'Who are these people with weapons in the clash in Chittagong?' said that a dispute arose in Chittagong's Muradpur on July 16 between quota reform activists and Chhatra League–Jubo League members (youth wings of the Awami League). Eyewitnesses told the outlet that in the conflict, several individuals openly used firearms and sharp weapons. The report said that the helmet-wearing armed man was Firoz Alam, allegedly a Jubo League leader.
Based on these findings, it is clear that the viral clip is not from the recent unrest in Murshidabad, West Bengal. The video is from student protests in Bangladesh in July last year and was shared with misleading and false claims.
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Hello, my name is Ankit Sahu. I'm a 25 year old self-employed Pirate from the Chhindwara.