Kolkata Mosque Demolition? The Video Is From Bangladesh
A dramatic video claiming to capture the demolition of Kolkata’s historic Ghouri Jama Masjid has gone viral online. Here’s what the viral claim got wrong.
A viral video shows a mob allegedly demolishing a mosque. Several Pakistan-based social media accounts shared the clip, claiming it showed a 136-year-old mosque near Kolkata airport.
OBC identified these viral posts as false and misleading.
The Viral Video
The user @sheikh__khirad posted this video on X on 22 September, with the caption, ‘ HINDUTVA TERROR IN KOLKATA: 136-year-old Ghouri Jama Masjid near airport bulldozed by RSS to build Ram Mandir Muslims were crying, begging but these saffron goons showed zero mercy and martyred the mosque ’. As of 23 September, the video had amassed over 824.4k views, 2.4k reshares and more than 4.1k likes.
Several other social media accounts in India have also circulated similar videos. The Facebook page ‘The Daily Byte’ shared the same video.
The video features a caption that reads, ‘KOLKATA URGENT: A 136-year-old Ghouri Jama Masjid near the airport was reportedly bulldozed amid claims that it was cleared for a Ram Mandir project. Muslims were seen pleading for the mosque to be spared as the demolition went ahead.
’. The video has received more than 1k likes.
Many users flooded the comments with anti-Muslim remarks, questioning the presence of Muslims in India and the existence of the mosque. They also claimed, ‘Why are Muslims still living in India… after splitting Pakistan…’.Another user commented, ‘Why have you built a mosque inside an airport?’
How did we verify?
We analysed keyframes from the viral video and conducted a reverse image search, which confirmed that the visuals matched an incident reported by The Daily Star on 18th September.
According to the report, a mob attacked and vandalised the house of Mustafa Pramanik, who was accused of the rape and murder of a 10-year-old schoolgirl in Pabna Sadar Upazila. The incident occurred in Kulunia. Officer-in-charge Md. Tariqul Islam of Pabna Sadar police station stated that the girl’s body, found wrapped in a sack, was recovered from a pond seven days after her disappearance. Local grocer Mostafa Pramanik, 55 and his tenant, Yasin Ali, were arrested in connection with the case and sent to jail by the court.
Our analysis found that the viral video does not show a Muslim mosque being demolished in Kolkata. We analysed keyframes from the viral video and conducted a reverse image search, which led us to a report published by The Daily Star on 18 September. We also geolocated the video to a house in Pabna, Bangladesh. Therefore, the viral posts falsely link a video from Bangladesh to an incident in India.
