Last month, hours after the ouster of then-Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the BBC reported that the unrest that triggered her exile also saw incidents of violence against the country’s Hindu minority.
Indian media followed suit, alleging “Islamists” had “sabotaged” the student-led anti-government protests and resorted to “rioting and hunting down” Hindus across the country. The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council further alleged that it had received reports of 54 attacks targeting temples, homes and establishments belonging to Hindus within hours of Wajed’s exit.
Social media was also rife with allegations of protesters burning Hindu homes, looting shops and vandalizing temples. Some Indian accounts went so far as to allege mob lynchings of Hindus, referring to videos that claimed to show rioters torturing men they described as Hindus. These reports paid little heed to multiple reports also emerging from Bangladesh of student groups gathering to protect homes and temples of Hindus to ensure they did not fall prey to the enflamed emotions resulting from the change in government.
In a bid to counter the “genocide” reports, multiple news agencies then rubbished the earlier news items as propaganda, describing them as being either exaggerated or outright false. While acknowledging that some minority homes and places of worship were attacked, the reports cited on ground reporting as “proving” that the targets were chosen because of their support for the Awami League led by Hasina and not religious hatred. Unfortunately, in today’s world, it has become ever harder to differentiate between fake news and reliable reportage, as social media helps spread reports long before there is any chance of their verification. Just a few weeks ago, Britain erupted in anti-Muslim protests over reports—subsequently proven false—of a Muslim refugee murdering three young girls. Bangladesh, it appears, saw similar attempts to spread misinformation, with experts warning that most such reports emerged from India and sought to fuel Islamophobia within India and undermine Bangladesh’s interim government. This, likely, arose from India believing that an Awami League-led government worked in its interests, while the new regime did not prefer to do so.