Anti-Muslim sentiment has risen in India under the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Hindu nationalist policies, but a video purporting to show a Muslim man being roughed up in Uttar Pradesh state in fact shows footage from Bangladesh. AFP geolocated the video to Noakhali district in southern Bangladesh, and police said that locals had caught the man for selling drugs.
"Barabanki - Uttar Pradesh. A video from Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, has rapidly surfaced on social media, showing an elderly Muslim man allegedly being assaulted and mistreated. Following the emergence of the video, varied reactions and opinions regarding the incident are being observed on social media," reads the caption of an August 15 X post.
A 16-second clip shows a man in glasses being restrained by two men while he is being slapped, pushed and shoved.
A Hindi-language superimposed text repeats the claim, adding that the incident has outraged the Muslim community.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP has introduced policies targeting Muslims and minorities, such as setting up detention centres in West Bengal and introducing legislation to curb polygamy ( archived link)
Anti-Muslim sentiment in the country also increased following the India-Pakistan conflict in May 2025, with Muslims including Kashmiri students, vendors and workers targeted in attacks across India, a Human Right's Watch report found ( archived link).
In one such recent incident, Uttar Pradesh police on August 13 arrested two Hindu men in connection with the death of a Muslim rickshaw driver ( archived link).
Another incident in Uttar Pradesh's Barabanki district, a Muslim man was killed by his Hindu neighbours over an alleged land dispute, according to a local media report ( archived link).
Comments from users on the clip shared on Facebook and Instagram posts suggest they believed it showed a communal incident from India.
One user commented, "This is the BJP's Hindu nation, where Muslims are second-class citizens", while another wrote, "He must have done something wrong; otherwise, why would Hindu brothers beat him up?"
The clip, however, is unrelated to communal violence in India, and was filmed in Bangladesh.
A reverse image searchon Google using keyframes from the video found a longer version shared on the Facebook page of a local Bangladeshi news portal Mk Tv on August 7 ( archived link).
According to the Bangla caption, the man in the video is a leader of the Jubo League, or youth wing of the now-banned Awami League party, led by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina ( archived link).
It also identified the man as Joynal Abedin, the brother of the former chairman of Char Jubilee Union, a local administrative area in Noakhali district, Bangladesh.
The local media outlet also reported that the video was filmed at Noakhali's Bangla Bazar, where a group of locals apprehended a man for selling methamphetamine.
AFP found the visuals in the video matched the Google Street View imagery from Bangla Bazar (archived links here, here).
AFP reached out to the local police who confirmed that the man was Joynal Abedin, a former leader of Awami League's youth wing.
"He was caught by the public with seven pieces of Yaba (methamphetamine) on August 7. They beat him up and then handed him over to the police", Officer-in-Charge of Char Jabbar police station in Noakhali, Md Rafiqul Hasan, told AFP on August 27.
"He received initial treatment at the hospital and was later handed over to the court, where he is currently awaiting his bail," Hasan added.
AFP has previously debunked videos from Bangladesh that were shared alongside false claims in India.