Rumor Scanner detects fake news of Sheikh Hasina’s death and Hindu killings

POBNEWS24,Dhaka, Feb 3, 2025 : News of the death of recently ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina spread on social media Facebook. However, Rumor Scanner says that the claim of Sheikh Hasina’s death is false.
The Rumor Scanner report shows that various information about her has been circulating on the internet since she was ousted from power on August 5, 2024, through a student-public uprising and took refuge in India. In view of this, a claim titled ‘Sheikh Hasina died tonight at 2:30 am Indian time’ has been circulating on social media Facebook since January 30. This claim is not correct.
It is said that the Rumor Scanner team monitored the Facebook posts circulated with the claim discussed at the beginning of the investigation. The post was first published on January 30. However, they did not find any sources to support the claim in the posts. Later, the posts circulated on the verified Facebook page of the Bangladesh Awami League since January 30 were monitored. Although information about the party’s various activities was disseminated, no information was found regarding the claim of Sheikh Hasina’s death.
In addition, it was claimed that the verified Facebook page and X account of Sheikh Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy and the X account of daughter Saima Wazed Putul were verified. However, no one found any information about Sheikh Hasina’s death there.
Therefore, the claim of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s death is completely false.
Meanwhile, footage of student clashes in Bangladesh is being falsely circulated on social media as a ‘Hindu massacre’. However, AFP’s fact-checking site says that the footage of the violent clashes shared online does not show evidence of Hindu students being killed in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, as claimed in the social media posts.
The video shows students from various colleges in the capital Dhaka clashing. A police spokesman and the principal of the university where the violence broke out told AFP that the incident had nothing to do with religion.
An X-post shared the video on December 8, saying, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman College, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Hindu students were identified, separated and killed.
The footage shows a mob attacking a school in Dhaka with sticks near a building called ‘Dr. Mahbubur Rahman Mollah College’. A similar video has been shared on X-post, which also claims that a Hindu student has been killed in Bangladesh.
Regarding the death of the student in the hospital, a reverse image search of the video on Google revealed a longer version posted on YouTube by Bangladeshi newspaper Dainik Jugantor on November 25. The video is titled ‘Clash between Mahbubur Rahman Mollah College and Kabi Nazrul and Suhrawardy College students’.
A Bangladeshi newspaper broadcasted a live broadcast of the clash on November 25, where a journalist explained that students from Dr. Mahbubur Rahman Mollah College started attacking students from Kabi Nazrul and Shaheed Suhrawardy College who had come to their campus.
The Daily Star and Prothom Alo newspapers reported that the violence was the latest in a series of protests that erupted after a student from Dr. Mahbubur Rahman Molla College died in hospital due to negligence.
According to the Daily Star, around 100 people were injured in the clashes on November 25. Police have denied online rumours that two people were killed.
Dr. Mahbubur Rahman Molla College principal Md. Obaidullah Nayan told AFP on January 23 that students from two colleges attacked our campus. None of the injured were Hindu students and there was no attack targeting Hindu students.
Jatrabari police station officer-in-charge (OC) Farooq Ahmed, a police spokesman, said the clashes had no connection to communal violence.
Rezaul Haque, a hospital spokesman, confirmed to AFP that the death of the Dr. Mahbubur Rahman Molla College student was not linked to religious tensions in Bangladesh.
He told AFP on February 2 that the Dhaka National Medical College Institute Hospital authorities, after investigating, found no link to communal clashes with the student’s death.