Religious misinformation took centre stage in Bangladesh following West Bengal’s state assembly election, rising to 9% of all verified unique misinformation in the second quarter of this year, up from just 2.7% in the first quarter.
In the first quarter of this year, political misinformation constituted roughly three-quarters of all verified unique instances of misinformation in the wake of Bangladesh’s national parliamentary election held last February. Meanwhile, religious misinformation rose markedly after the Bharatiya Janata Party won power for the first time in West Bengal’s state assembly election, held in India last April.
After the BJP won West Bengal’s assembly election, with results declared on May 4, misinformation spread claiming that Muslims there were being persecuted and mosques demolished. The nature of the BJP’s election campaign was a major driver of this. Indian social media users, in some cases, also spread this kind of misinformation to celebrate the BJP’s victory. Experts believe this kind of religious misinformation can heighten communal tension and create various social and political risks in both countries.
Alongside religious misinformation, law-and-order-related misinformation also rose in the second quarter. Law-and-order misinformation made up just 1.8% of all verified misinformation in the first quarter, rising to 8.2% in the second. Still, although it declined compared to the first quarter, political misinformation retained the largest share in the second quarter as well — more than half (57%) of all verified reports were related to politics.
Overall, too, the volume of verified misinformation fell in the second quarter compared with the first. Total verified unique misinformation stood at 1,804 in the first quarter; that figure fell 30% to 1,265 in the second quarter. This picture emerged from an analysis of reports published on nine Bangladesh-related fact-checking websites, including Dismislab.
Trigger eventsSeven events that shaped Q2’s misinformation
From April to June, seven specific events shaped the misinformation in the second quarter. Each card sets the context alongside the misinformation it produced.
ReligionReligious misinformation on the rise
Religious misinformation emerged as one of the defining trends of the second quarter, surging in the weeks after West Bengal’s assembly election. Religion-related claims accounted for 9% of all unique fact-checks, up from 2.7% in the previous quarter, even as overall fact-checking activity declined.
Anti-Muslim rhetoric emerged as a major strategy in the BJP’s election campaign in West Bengal. An investigation by The Wire found that BJP-elected Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari made anti-Muslim remarks at various rallies and gatherings from 2021 to 2026. Following the BJP’s election victory, incidents of attacks on Muslims in some areas were also reported by various Indian news outlets.
Against this backdrop, Bangladeshi social media users also spread a good deal of misinformation claiming that, following the BJP’s victory, Muslims in various parts of West Bengal were being persecuted, evicted, or that mosques were being demolished. In most cases, old photos and videos were the tools used for this misinformation.
Old photos and videos from Nepal, Yemen, Indonesia or Bangladesh were shared with claims that Muslim homes were being vandalized, mosques and madrassas were being attacked, or Muslim graves were being destroyed. Old or unrelated photos and videos from various parts of India were also circulated with claims of persecution of Muslims. For instance, a clash at a wedding venue in India’s Uttar Pradesh was circulated as an attack on Muslims. A fire caused by an electrical short circuit was circulated with claims that the BJP was setting fire to Muslim homes. A video of an eviction drive in Jashore, Bangladesh, was circulated as showing the demolition of Muslim homes in India.
A video of a mosque being demolished in Pakistan was circulated with claims that it showed a mosque demolition in West Bengal. Separately, a video of music being played at a shrine in Bangladesh was circulated with the claim that BJP supporters in India were playing musical instruments during prayer times to disrupt Muslim worship. Staged or scripted videos (1, 2) were also used at times to make claims of persecution against Muslims.
Some social media users shared this misinformation to try to build a case for retaliatory action against religious minorities in Bangladesh. Md. Sayeed Al-Zaman, assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Jahangirnagar University and currently a PhD researcher at the University of Canberra, believes this kind of disinformation can create social and political risks for both countries.
“Religious disinformation is always a potential threat to the safety of minority communities — it not only disturbs their sense of psychological security, but religious disinformation has also been at the root of major communal attacks in both India and Bangladesh over the past decade.”Md. Sayeed Al-Zaman · Jahangirnagar University / University of Canberra
If religious populist politics persists, he said, both neighboring countries may have to contend with various social and political risks stemming from religious disinformation in the days ahead, and the steadily rising religious intolerance in society points in that direction. A separate Dismislab investigation also found how narratives of Muslim persecution in India have fueled incitement against Hindus in Bangladesh.
The traffic ran both ways
Following the BJP’s win in the West Bengal assembly election, religious misinformation was spread not only from Bangladesh but also by social media users in India. For example, a video from Barisal was circulated with the claim that illegal Bangladeshi Muslims were fleeing following the BJP’s victory in West Bengal. Another video from Bangladesh was circulated with the claim that a Muslim youth had been caught attempting to steal from a Hindu household in Assam.
Conversely, a smaller but persistent stream of misinformation claimed Hindus in Bangladesh were facing violent reprisals. For instance, an old accidental incident was circulated as a case of vandalism and arson targeting Hindu homes. A video from India was circulated with claims that a Hindu shopkeeper had been killed for refusing to pay extortion money. An attack and vandalism at the home of a suspected drug dealer was circulated as an attack on Hindus.
The border becomes a second front
This back-and-forth exchange of religious misinformation following West Bengal’s assembly election got a further boost from the “push-in” issue at the Bangladesh-India border. India’s post-election “detect, delete, deport” drive in West Bengal, under which thousands of people described as undocumented migrants — most of them Muslim — were rounded up and, in many cases, forced across the border into Bangladesh. Human Rights Watch and Al Jazeera reported the drive intensified through late May and June, and documented cases where Indian citizens carrying valid ID were also expelled.
That border dispute generated its own kind of misinformation, which included a fabricated image of the BSF seizing a Bangladeshi farmer, an old video falsely claiming the BGB had dragged away a BSF member, and a photo claiming the BSF had massed at the border under cover of a training exercise that was, in fact, an unrelated Nepali election drill.
On May 12, BSF personnel attempted to seize cattle that had wandered across the border near Lalmonirhat when local residents pushed back. Indian social media accounts recast the same footage as Bangladeshi Muslims attacking BSF jawans, with one post using a derogatory term for Bangladeshis.
Law & orderLaw and order misinformation also rises
Like religious misinformation, law-and-order-related misinformation also increased in the second quarter of this year — though along a different curve. Law-and-order claims made up just 1.8% of unique fact-checks in the first quarter, rising to 8.2% in the second. Law-and-order misinformation climbed steadily every month: 16 entries in April, 38 in May and 50 in June.
A meaningful share of the quarter’s rise traces back to a single case: the May 19 rape and murder of eight-year-old Ramisa Akter in Dhaka’s Pallabi area, which drew intense national attention through the trial and death sentencing of her killers on June 7 — one of the fastest major trials in the country’s judicial history. The case appears to have triggered a broader wave of rape-related misinformation, which surged roughly five-fold in weekly frequency after May 19, almost always built on recycled footage from unconnected past incidents or other countries.
Most law-and-order misinformation was spread with claims that specific criminal incidents had occurred: mugging, rape, murder, extortion. The dominant tactic was recirculating footage from other countries with claims that it depicted events in Bangladesh. Videos from Colombia and Indonesia were claimed to show attacks on police stations or clashes between protesters and police. Videos from India were circulated with claims of child rape, robbery, or murder on Bangladeshi soil. A video from Afghanistan was recirculated with claims that militants were being trained inside Bangladesh.
A smaller but distinct share used AI-generated video rather than repurposed footage. Roughly 8% of the quarter’s law-and-order misinformation relied on this tactic, including a fabricated photo claiming two people were arrested with crude bombs at a Bangla New Year event, and another claiming a shop had been vandalized over unpaid extortion money.
PoliticsPolitical misinformation still dominates
Politics remained the single largest category of misinformation in the second quarter, though its share of the overall total fell even as the topics around it — religion, law and order — grew. Of 1,265 unique fact-checks published across nine Bangladesh-related fact-checking sites in April, May and June, 717, or 57%, were political. The share dipped compared with the 74% in the first quarter, but it never lost its position as the dominant topic.
The most persistent thread was the claim that the Awami League — banned from political activity since 2025 — is quietly returning to strength. At least 84 fact-checks addressed some version of this narrative, running continuously from April through June. Most relied on old rally and procession footage from elsewhere relabeled as recent shows of force (1, 2, 3); a smaller cluster involved fabricated predictions of the party’s political revival, including a widely shared claim in early April that it would return “within 60 days.” The narrative surged in April, around parliament’s April 8 vote entrenching the ban in law, and again in June, tied to the death of veteran AL leader Tofail Ahmed and the party’s founding anniversary.
Another narrative accused BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami figures, including their student and youth wings, of criminal conduct — at least 81 fact-checks, weighted heavily toward June. Roughly half involved claims that BNP or Jamaat activists had attacked, tortured or killed Awami League members (1, 2, 3), almost always built on repurposed video from India or unconnected domestic incidents; the sharpest cluster came in the last week of June, when at least five fact-checks in a single week debunked claims that bodies of “killed” Chhatra League activists had surfaced in the Turag river. The remainder involved extortion, sexual violence and land-grabbing allegations (1, 2, 3, 4) against BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami.
Fake or fabricated quotes were a large portion of the political misinformation: 332 fact-checks, 46% of the quarter’s political misinformation, outstripping every other category combined. These ranged from fake statements attributed to sitting BNP ministers — Prime Minister Tarique Rahman (19), Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed (17) — to officials from the previous Yunus-led interim government, still fabricated months after leaving office, to prominent figures holding no government post at all, led by independent MP Rumeen Farhana with 18.
The most significant finding within this narrative is its origin: at least 146 of the 332 fabricated quotes, or 44%, trace back to satire and parody Facebook pages whose jokes were stripped of context and recirculated as genuine news. Four accounts — Gupto Television, Daily Mollar Desh, Bengali Steam and GojobVision — accounted for a large majority of that pipeline.
Women in politics as targets
At least 22 fact-checks this quarter targeted women in politics with sexualized or scandal-implying fabrications, and the pattern cut across every party rather than concentrating in one: NCP saw the largest share (8), followed by Jamaat (4), BNP (2) and the Dhaka University student union (2). Tactics repeated regardless of party — AI-edited images implying immodesty, misattributed adult content, fabricated romantic pairings (including a false claim that independent MP Rumeen Farhana had married the Speaker), and attacks routed through a male leader’s wife rather than the leader himself.
Format & techniqueTactics of spreading misinformation
Video overtook graphic cards as the dominant format for misinformation this quarter, rising from 36% of Q1 to 48% of Q2, while graphic cards fell from 43% to 31%. Image-based misinformation held roughly steady at 13-15% in both quarters.
The larger shift is in technique rather than format. Content circulated without any digital alteration — no editing, no AI — rose from 62% of Q1’s fact-checks to 80% in Q2, while content bearing signs of manual editing or doctoring collapsed from 23% to 7%. AI-generated or AI-assisted content dipped slightly, from 15% to 14%.