On July 16, in Gopalganj, around the July March organized by the National Citizens Party (NCP), there were repeated incidents of attacks, vandalism, arson, and crude bomb explosions throughout the day. Four people have been confirmed dead so far in clashes between Awami League supporters and law enforcement agencies. In this context, three images have spread on social media claiming to show police attacks on the public in Gopalganj.
See some of the posts circulated on Facebook here (archive), here (archive), here (archive), and here (archive).
The same picture was reported by Indian media outlets The Economic Times and India TV regarding yesterday’s Gopalganj incident.
Fact-check
According to an investigation by the Rumor Scanner team, the circulated images are not from the clashes between police and Awami League supporters in Gopalganj on July 16. In fact, one of the three images was taken in September 2022 and shows a member of the Detective Branch (DB) police firing at BNP activists in Narayanganj. The remaining two images are from a protest march held in August last year in Gopalganj to demand the return of Sheikh Hasina to the country.
At the start of the investigation, the image of the DB officer firing was reverse image searched and found on a report published on September 7, 2022, on the website of NewsBangla24 titled “That weapon wasn’t Konok’s, he didn’t even have a chance to fire”. The discussed image matches the one attached to that report.
According to the report, the image shows Detective Branch Sub-Inspector Mahfuzur Rahman Konok firing during a clash between BNP leaders and police in Narayanganj on September 1, 2022, the party’s 44th founding anniversary.
Furthermore, regarding the other two images, reverse image searches found them in a report published on August 8 last year on a news website called Daily Desh Somoy, titled “Child injured in army shooting in Gopalganj, angry mob sets fire to army vehicle”. The two images in the report match the remaining images in the circulated posts.
According to the report, on August 8 last year, the public gathered for a rally in Gopinathpur, Gopalganj, to demand the return of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to the country. At one point during the rally, clashes broke out between the army and the public. The images depict that time period.
In conclusion, the circulated images are not from the recent (July 16) clashes in Gopalganj.
Therefore, one image from 2022 and two images from August last year are being shared falsely as visuals of the clashes between police and Awami League supporters during the National Citizens Party’s July 16 Gopalganj march, which is misleading.
Sources
- News Bangla 24 – That weapon wasn’t Konok’s, he didn’t even have a chance to fire
- Daily Desh Somoy – Child injured in army shooting in Gopalganj, angry mob sets fire to army vehicle
- Daily Ittefaq – Facebook Live
