A scripted video from Bangladesh showing a group of men helping a woman elope is viral with false communal claims that she is a Hindu who was trapped and lured by a Muslim man into marriage.
The video is circulating with a false 'love jihad' spin in India; Love Jihad refers to an alleged conspiracy by Muslim men to lure Hindu women into converting to Islam on the pretext of love or marriage. The video shows a man and a woman clandestinely get into a moving car with the help of a friend. Later, the friend along with others escape in an auto rickshaw; the entire video has been filmed from a bike in motion.
BOOM spoke to Mohammed Sohag, one of the actors in the video, who confirmed that the video is scripted and was shot in Bangladesh's Chandpur district. Additionally, he also refuted the communal angle viral with the video.
The video is being shared with a Hindi caption that translates to, "In Love Jehad, this is how a sanatani girl gets driven away by coaxing her and making full preparations. An entire gang is engaged, so that any situation can be dealt with."
(Original Text in Hindi: Love Jehad में बहला-फुसलाकर पूरी तैयारी कर सनातनी लड़की को इस तरह से भगाया जाता है। पूरा गैंग लगा होता है,ताकि किसी भी परिस्थिति से निपटा जा सके।) (sic.)
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Fact Check
BOOM performed a reverse image search on one of the keyframes from the viral video and found the same video uploaded on YouTube on April 10, 2023.
The video has a clearer version of the car's number plate that mentions "Dhaka Metro-GA 7-9335" in Bengali. This number refers to the registration number of the car that belongs to Dhaka Metro of Bangladesh. This establishes that the video is from Bangladesh.
We further spotted a contact number present on the auto rickshaw.
Taking a cue, BOOM Bangladesh reached out to the auto rickshaw driver Mohammed Sohag, who confirmed that the video was shot at his native village Noagaon of Bangladesh's Chandpur district few months ago. Sohag told BOOM that the incident was a scripted one and shows a sequence of how friends help a young couple elope and get married. He also ruled out a communal spin to the video. "There is no communal angle to the video and in the script, both belong to the same community."
Sohag told BOOM Bangladesh, "My neighbour Mohammed Jahid took my auto rickshaw few months ago to shoot this video and upload it on his TikTok channel." According to Sohag, Jahid is a popular TikToker from the area.
BOOM however was unable to find Jahid's TikTok handle on the platform.
Sohag further told BOOM that he was driving the auto rickshaw. "I can be seen driving the auto rickshaw in the video. The woman, who got into the car from the auto rickshaw, is Sumaiya Akhtar." Incidentally, Sumaiya is Jahid's wife in real life, and they both belong to the Muslim community.
BOOM was however unable to independently verify where the video was uploaded first.
(Additional Reporting: Ameer Shakir, BOOM Bangladesh)