Fact-Checkers Flag Falsehoods on Facebook
FactWatch, an initiative approved by Liberal Arts Bangladesh University and operated by the Center for Critical and Qualitative Studies (CQS), which is tasked with countering rumors, fake news, and disinformation while ensuring accurate information reaches the public, has identified a doctored photocard falsely attributing content to Jamaat-e-Islami.
Meanwhile, BanglaFact, the fact-check and media research team of the Press Institute Bangladesh (PIB), has detected attempts to mislead by circulating old images of idol vandalism from 2021 as if they were recent incidents.
According to FactWatch, a photocard containing the message that Jamaat-e-Islami would arrange the making of idols in nearly 300 puja mandaps across the country was widely shared on social media. The photocard appeared to feature the logo of Ajker Patrika. However, FactWatch’s investigation confirmed it was an edited image, and no such news had been published on Ajker Patrika’s official Facebook page or website.
BanglaFact reported that photos of idol vandalism being shared online with claims of a recent incident in Joypurhat are, in fact, old. Its verification process confirmed that at least three images circulating were not new; two of them were related to incidents in Shuktahar, Joypurhat, in September 2021. Reverse image searches revealed their presence online since at least 2021, with national dailies reporting at the time—citing police and local sources—that idols at Shuktahar Madhyapara and Purbapara Sarbajanin Durga temples were vandalized on the night of September 24, 2021. Police had arrested one individual in connection with the incident.
Confirming the facts, Joypurhat Sadar Police Station’s Officer-in-Charge, Tambirul Islam, told BanglaFact: “No new incidents of idol vandalism have occurred in the Shuktahar area.”
Additionally, Joypurhat district correspondents of national dailies informed BanglaFact, “No such incident has taken place in the area. Law and order remain fully under control.”
BanglaFact concluded that the claims were false and that the images being circulated were old.
