Bangladesh reels from ripple effects of misinformation out of India
Distorted claims of a ‘Hindu genocide’ are damaging people-to-people relations, trade and even Bangladesh’s ties with other countries.
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On November 26, several Indian news outlets reported that the lawyer defending a Hindu monk arrested for sedition had been killed in violence outside the Chittagong court. Some outlets claimed that the man had been shot in police firing, while others said he had died in clashes. Even the respected news agency Reuters claimed that the man, Shariful Islam, was the monk’s lawyer.
But as the Bangladeshi fact-checking site Rumour Scanner soon clarified, the man who was killed was not the monk’s lawyer. By claiming that he was, Indian publications were pushing the narrative that Bangladesh was so hostile to Hindus that even the monk’s lawyer had been killed.
This was just one of the 126 pieces of misinformation that Rumor Scanner has debunked between August 12 and December 4, starting a week after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India after her Awami League government was deposed in a mass uprising.
Since then, at least 49 Indian media outlets have disseminated false reports about Bangladesh, the organisation said. Republic Bangla topped the list. Research by Rumor Scanner found that about 72% of social media accounts spreading misinformation against Bangladesh are located in India.
Many Indian media outlets have been portraying Bangladesh as a fundamentalist, Hindu-hating and Taliban-like state, observers say. Many reports and claim that Bangladeshi minorities are being targeted...
