Fact check: PM Khan shares Dhaka videos, describes them India’s

Prime Minister Imran Khan shared on Friday a few videos on his Twitter handle and captioned one of them “Indian police’s pogrom against Muslims in UP”.

He shared them in a thread that included link to an article
published by The Hindu on state-sponsored hatred against Muslims.

One of these videos showed a few people covered in blood lying on the floor, with the police torturing them. Some others, including children, were seen running to safety in it.

Samaa Digital attempted to verify the video and it turned
out that it was actually from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Here is a screenshot from the said video that shows RAB written on a shield carried by a policeman. Google it and you will come to know of Rapid Action Battalion — an elite anti-crime and anti-terrorism unit of the Bangladesh Police.

We then employed the reverse image search technique to dig deeper. It led us to a Bangladeshi website and a Youtube channel from where this and other videos were shared.

These videos also had description in the Bangla language. Upon translating it using Google Translator, it said: Police attack on Hefazat-e-Islam rally. It was dated May 5, 2013.

We then looked for Hefazat-e-Islam online and came to know
that it was an organisation comprising students and teachers of religious
seminaries in Bangladesh.

The organisation had laid 13 demands, including the one to
enact blasphemy laws, before the Bangladeshi government in 2013.

They had organised a long march and choked Dhaka by staging
sit-ins on all its entry points.

In reaction, workers of the ruling Awami League had
initiated attacks against Hefazat-e-Islam, which had led to a spate of violence
committed by both the sides.

After the situation went really out of control, the RAB launched
a crackdown on Hefazat-e-Islam from May 6 to 8, 2013.

Amid all this, videos of police storming a Hefazat-e-Islam seminary
also emerged.

PM Khan shared some of those videos Friday, linking them to
police in Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

However, the videos were removed from his account shortly afterwards.

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Article source: https://www.samaa.tv/news/2020/01/fact-check-pm-khan-shares-dhaka-videos-describes-them-indias/