Amid the current political landscape in Bangladesh, a 34-second video has been widely circulated on Facebook, with various accounts asserting that the woman seen in the footage was raped and then murdered before being dumped in a cornfield. Some posts have presented the video in a manner suggesting that the incident took place in Bangladesh, while others have explicitly stated that it occurred there. However, an investigation by FactWatch has revealed that the video is not from Bangladesh but rather from West Bengal, India, and dates back to February 2024.
To verify the authenticity of this claim, a reverse image search on X (formerly Twitter) led to a video that closely resembles the one currently viral on Facebook in Bangladesh. The video was originally posted on X on February 24 last year, with a caption identifying the deceased woman as Mousumi Mandal. Her body was reportedly found in a cornfield in Sabdalpur, a village near the border under the Vaishnabnagar Assembly constituency in Malda district, West Bengal. Further investigation led to a report from Pushpapravat, a local news outlet in West Bengal, which contained an image of the same woman. According to a report published on February 23 last year, the woman was a housewife who went missing after going to inspect her farmland. After an extensive search, her unclothed body was eventually recovered.
Another local news source in Malda, NewsBazar24, had also posted the viral video on its Facebook page. The video was uploaded on February 24, 2024, with a caption stating that the body of a half-naked housewife had been found in a cornfield in Malda. The incident was reported to have occurred in the Sarkarpara area under the Bakhrabad Gram Panchayat, within the jurisdiction of Vaishnabnagar police station. The caption also noted that the woman had gone to inspect her farmland around noon that day.
Based on this evidence, FactWatch has confirmed that the video depicting the recovery of a woman’s unclothed body from a cornfield is not from Bangladesh. Consequently, FactWatch has classified the Facebook posts spreading this claim as false.
Original News Source: https://www.fact-watch.org/woman-dead-body-found-in-corn-field/
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Fact-Check Alert
Please be aware of misleading information about Bangladesh politics on social media and verify sources before sharing.
Before sharing any photocard, always verify it by checking the original media source.
Sharing religious misinformation and disinformation can cause harm. Always verify before sharing.
Before sharing any photocard, always verify it by checking the original media source.
Sharing religious misinformation and disinformation can cause harm. Always verify before sharing.