Staff Reporter:
The fact-checking body Rumor Scanner debunked a video published online platforms claiming a woman was recently raped and her tongue was cut out in Bangladesh saying the incident was not of Bangladesh rather it happened in India.
“The video of a recent incident in India is being circulated as Bangladesh one claiming that a woman was recently raped and her tongue was cut out; which is false,” it said.
In a report published on its website on Monday, the fact-checking organization said recently, a vid-eo of a seriously injured woman sitting on the side of the road and people asking her questions is being circulated on various online platforms.
The circulated posts referred to the woman as a tourist and made various claims that she was gang-raped in Teknaf or beaten on the street in Cumilla and had her lips and tongue cut off, or that she was raped and her tongue was cut off to prevent her from speaking.
In an investigation, it is found that when the injured woman was asked where her home was, a person mentioned Murshidabad in response to her vague answer. It is to be noted that Murshida-bad is a district in the Indian state of West Bengal.
Based on the information, a relevant keyword search found a report titled ‘Woman’s body recovered from the edge of a paddy field in Joynagar, police investigating’ published on the website of the Indian media ‘News 18’ on January 22.
According to the report, on the night of January 20, witnesses saw a woman lying in a bloody state on a brick road on the edge of an empty paddy field in the Rathtala area under Bakultala police station in Joynagar, West Bengal, India. After being informed, the police took the woman to the hospital, where the doctors declared her dead.
Witnesses said that the woman had gunshot wounds on her body, one side of her face was crushed, and several teeth were broken.
The Indian media Anandabazar published news on the same information.
Further investigation found a video titled ‘Joynagar News: Bloody body of unidentified woman re-covered from a paddy field in Bakultala, police investigating’ published on the YouTube channel ‘Vision 18 Bangla’ on January 24 as the subject and surroundings of the video are found similar to that of the video in question.
In addition, the same video is used in a video titled ‘Joynagar News: Accused of Joynagare woman murder yet to be arrested, woman hacked to death in Bakultala!’ published on News 18’s YouTube channel on January 25.
Moreover, another video of the woman was found from a post by an Indian Facebook user named Rekha Patra, and the caption of this post also confirms that the video is from West Bengal.
From the above information, it can be confirmed that the incident in the video in question did not take place in Bangladesh.
Therefore, a video of a recent incident in India is being circulated as Bangladesh one claiming that a woman was recently raped and her tongue was cut out; which is false, the Rumor Scanner con-cluded.
