As India's Muslim minority observes the holy month of Ramadan, a video has been circulated on social media platforms with the false claim that it shows a Hindu man being harassed inside a mosque. The video, however, is a cropped segment from a stage drama. One of the play's creators clarified that the video was made to promote communal harmony.
On March 7, 2025, a Facebook post featured the caption, "This Hindu youth went to a Muslim iftar party to spread the message of brotherhood... the Muslims beat him up and threw him out... I believe they did the right thing with the Hindu boy." The post included a clip showing a man in Muslim prayer attire attacking another individual dressed in saffron-coloured clothing, a colour commonly associated with Hindu nationalism.
This claim, in both Bengali and Hindi, has been spread widely on Facebook. However, the video is not a depiction of a real incident but a scene from a staged drama. A reverse image search of a keyframe from the clip led to a longer version uploaded on YouTube on April 6, 2024. The title of the video reads, "When a Hindu monk goes to a Muslim mosque for iftar? A social experiment between Hindus and Muslims."
The circulated clip matches a 1.01-minute segment from the YouTube video, although it omits the portion that clearly identifies it as a theatrical performance. A 15-second disclaimer describing the video as a social experiment was also excluded. The channel "Prankbaz," which shared the original video, frequently posts similar content, and the actor portraying the Hindu character has appeared in other dramatizations.
Debraj Das, one of the actors and co-founders of the YouTube channel, told AFP that the video has been "misleadingly presented with communal claims." He stated, "We made the video with permission from the mosque authorities. We aimed to show the real unity between Hindus and Muslims against communal hatred." AFP has previously published fact-checks debunking attempts to present the staged video as a real incident inciting communal tension.
Original News Source: https://factcheckbangla.afp.com/doc.afp.com.374C9G2
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