A news bulletin showing disturbing visuals of a woman who was chained and subjected to sexual assault is being shared by Indian right-wing accounts with a false communal claim that the victim, a Hindu, was raped by Muslim men in Bangladesh.
BOOM found that the woman is not a Hindu. We reached out to Deputy Commissioner of Tejgaon Division police, HM Ajimul Haque, who confirmed that the victim is a Muslim and ruled out a communal angle to the incident.
The 56 seconds-long news bulletin with the logo of the Bangladeshi news outlet Rtv News shows a woman confined within a room, chained, and being assaulted by some men.
The video is being circulated with a Hindi caption that roughly translates to, "Terrible. A Hindu girl was tied in shackles and raped by several fanatics in Bangladesh. After recording the incident on phone cameras, they are selling the videos to adult websites."
(Original Text in Hindi: भयानक बांग्लादेश में एक हिंदू लड़की को बेड़ियों में बाँध दिया गया और कई कट्टरपंथियों ने उसके साथ बलात्कार किया। घटना को फोन कैमरे पर रिकॉर्ड करने के बाद, वे वीडियो को वयस्क वेबसाइटों को बेच रहे हैं।)
Trigger Warning: The video is distressing in nature.
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Fact Check
BOOM ran a keyword search in Bengali and found a news bulletin by Rtv News uploaded to their official YouTube channel on April 1, 2024.
The report stated that the horrific incident took place in Dhaka's Mohammadpur where the woman was kept chained and gang-raped in an apartment for 25 days.
We also found several news reports by other Bangladeshi media outlets corroborating the same.
A report published by BD News 24 on March 31, 2024, stated that the woman was detained for 25 days. She faced torture and was gangraped in a four-storeyed apartment in Nabinagar, Mohammadpur, at the hands of three men and one woman. The article further reported that on March 30 night, when the house was empty, she screamed through the window and drew the attention of a nearby resident.
The police then intervened promptly after the local resident dialed the national emergency service number and rescued her from the flat.
The report also added that the individuals named as suspects in the case are San (26), Himel (27), Rocky (29), and Salma alias Jhumur (28).
BOOM Bangladesh then reached out to Deputy Commissioner HM Ajimul Haque of the Tejgaon Division police to validate the communal allegation regarding the incident. Upon inquiry, Haque confirmed the woman's identity and refuted the communal angle.
Haque told BOOM Bangladesh, "The victim in this case is a Muslim. There is no communal angle to the incident."
(Additional Reporting: Tausif Akbar, BOOM Bangladesh)
