Recently, a video of a woman and a teenage girl wailing was circulated on platform X, with the claim that a Hindu businessman named Bikash Chandra was murdered by an Islamist named Mohammad Imran for failing to pay a “jizya tax” of seventy thousand taka. The post also claimed that religious extortion and persecution of minorities continue unhindered in the country. In other words, the incident was presented in a communal light.
See the posts shared on X making this claim: here, here.
See the post shared on Facebook making the same claim: here.
Fact-check
Rumor Scanner Team’s investigation revealed that the murder of Bikash Chandra is not a recent incident. Rather, a video from a 2023 incident is being recirculated on social media with a communal spin. In reality, no evidence was found to suggest any religious motive behind the murder.
A search revealed the same video was posted on June 10, 2023, by an X account named ‘Avro Neel’. The video’s caption mentioned Chandina in Cumilla as the location. In the video, the woman mourning claims that her husband, along with six others, had bought a pickup truck. Their neighbor Arju demanded one lakh taka as extortion for the pickup. She alleged that her husband was killed for refusing to pay that extortion.
Further investigation led to a report published on June 6, 2023, in the daily Jugantor. The report stated that in Cumilla’s Chandina upazila, a man named Bikash Chandra Das (42) was beaten to death for not renting out a pickup truck. The accused, Md. Azizul Islam Azu (28), is a resident of Barkarai Andirpara village in the same upazila.
Eyewitnesses and neighbors of the deceased, Sreekanto Chandra Das, Badal Chandra Das, and Hriday Chandra Das, stated that a cricket game was underway in a field near Gautam’s fish project in Narachho village. Bikash Chandra Das was standing there watching the game. Suddenly, Azu approached and, under the pretext of demanding owed money, began punching and kicking Bikash indiscriminately. At one point, Bikash collapsed to the ground and was taken to a private hospital in Nawabpur market. As his condition deteriorated, he was later taken to Chandina Upazila Health Complex in the evening, where the on-duty doctor declared him dead.
The deceased’s son, Jholok Das, stated that 3-4 days earlier, Azu had called his father at night requesting to rent the pickup truck. Since Azu’s financial dealings were unreliable, his father had refused. As a consequence, Azu murdered his father.
According to another report published in local news outlet Cumillar Zamin, following the incident, on June 26 police from Chandina police station arrested the accused, Azizul Haque Azu, during a raid in Dhaka.
Neither media reports, analysis of the circulated video, nor any other source provided any evidence that the murder occurred due to communal reasons. There is also no proof supporting the claim of a “jizya tax” or religious extortion.
Therefore, a murder committed in 2023 over a dispute about pickup truck rental was falsely presented with a communal angle as a recent killing, which is misleading.
Sources
- Avro Neel: X Post
- Jugantor: Beaten to death for not renting out pickup
- Cumillar Zamin: Prime accused in Bikash murder case arrested from Dhaka
