DHAKA, Jan 2, 2025 (BSS) - Fact checking body Rumor Scanner called false a video circulated on social media claiming that an Hindu child is being tortured by police in Bangladesh. 

The fact checking watchdog said the video of a child losing consciousness in heat of teargas fired to control the clash between Dhaka College and City College students with some police members and people present nearby trying to revive him is being propagated as police torturing of a Hindu child.

In a report published on its website on Monday, it said recently a video was circulated on social media platforms Instagram and YouTube, where there is a scene that a policeman is taking away a child from a woman's lap in a try to give him warmth from flame of fire. 

The video was falsely circulated claiming that it was a scene of torturing of a Hindu child by the police.

In this regard, a reverse image search was conducted with multiple key frames of the video circulated with the claim discussed, and a video circulated on November 20 of this year was found on a Facebook account named Ashraful Amin. The video is exactly the same as the video being circulated in the disputed claim.

The post about the video says, "Teargas was thrown to disperse Dhaka College and City College students. The smoke from the teargas made the child's condition worse."

Based on this, the investigation revealed that the name of the policeman shown in the video is Shefat Chowdhury. 

Later, the Rumor Scanner team found his personal Facebook account. When Shefat Chowdhury's Facebook account was monitored, a detailed post was found on his Facebook account on November 22 of this year, along with four photos of the incident.

In the post, he said that the incident was on November 20 of this year. The police and the army were trying to control the clash between Dhaka College and City College (students). 

At that time, heavy traffic jams started on the busy four-lane road of the Science Lab. Bricks and stones were thrown like rain, and the general public, policemen and army members were injured. Teargas shells were fired to bring the situation under control. 

In this situation, the common people left the scene due to the intense gas fumes, but no students from the two colleges left. The little child who is shown in the video in the lap of policeman Shefat and the child's mother were crossing the road at that moment. 

The mother and the child were having difficulty with breathing due to the teargas and both were crying. The child was unconscious and the mother was running. The police members were also suffocating due to the gas and made a fire to get relieve from the teargas. 

Seeing the child's mother running and crying, Shefat Chowdhury shouted and brought the woman closer and took the child in her arms and took her to the fire. 

When the girl child were regaining the sense for holding her near the low flame fire, everyone went to the road and sat down and one person there took off his T-shirt and set it on fire to increase flame. 
Then he held the child again near the fire so that the child can inhale it. The child recovered after about 10 minutes. Later, the child was again given to her mother's arms.

So, according to the police officer, the woman shown in the video is the child's mother. The child's mother is seen wearing a hijab or veil, which indicates that the woman or child was not Hindu but Muslim.

The fact watch body later searched the place of occurrence on Google Maps in light of the police's statement and found the similarity of the place of occurrence with New Elephant Road.

In addition, by searching with relevant keywords, it is known that on November 19 (Tuesday), a scuffle broke out between some City College students and Dhaka College students in the Science Lab area over boarding a bus. As a result, on the morning of November 20, Dhaka College students vandalized City College. When this news spread, the City College students came out on the road around 2:45 pm. 

They moved towards the Science Lab. Then the Dhaka College students came out and took a position near the Science Lab. At one stage, the two sides started throwing bricks at each other and a clash broke out.

Therefore, the claim of police torture of Hindu children is false.