Claim: A video shows a group of Pakistanis carrying Bangladeshi flags in favour of the 2024 student uprising that led to the ouster of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
Fact: The video predates the 2024 student protests in Bangladesh and existed online as early as January 2022.
On 21 August 2024, Dr Farhan K Virk posted (archive) a video showing a large group of people carrying Pakistani and Bangladeshi flags near a red-bricked building, while chanting, “Nara-e-Takbeer, Allahu Akbar! [God is the greatest!]”
Virk — a “troll” and “hashtag merchant” with over 270,000 followers on X (formerly Twitter) — “peddled nationalist propaganda” and was a “fervent supporter” of former prime minister Imran Khan before the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder came into power.
He shared the video with the following caption:
“پاکستان کے نوجوانوں نے دل جیت لئے 🇵🇰🇧🇩 آج پاکستانی نوجوانوں نے بنگلہ دیش کے بھائیوں بہنوں کی محبت کا جواب دے دیا۔ ایسے کلپس کو شئیر کریں تاکہ ہمارے بھائیوں کی محبت کا یہ پیغام ہمارے بنگالی بھائیوں تک پہنچے! شیخ مجیب کا نظریہ تو وڑ گیا 👎
[Pakistan’s youth has won hearts 🇵🇰🇧🇩 Today, Pakistani youth responded to the love of Bangladeshi brothers and sisters. Share such clips so that this message of brotherly love reaches our Bengali brothers! The views of Sheikh Mujib[ur Rahman] views are screwed 👎]”
Student protests in Bangladesh
The Bangladesh protests began in June 2024 when the country’s supreme court overruled a decision by the Sheikh Hasina-led government to do away with a 30% public jobs quota for the 1971 fighters’ descendants. Students, who felt like their opportunities were restricted, demanded the system be made more merit-based.
The mass protests saw violence and clashes, arrests and detentions, and incidents of police firing directly at the demonstrators, which included students and teachers under the ‘Anti-discrimination Student Movement’ banner. They were also fuelled by discontent with the government and its suppression of rights. Multiple deaths and injuries were reported in the events that followed.
The government imposed a curfew and communications services were severely disrupted across Bangladesh in a move to quell the protests, according to multiple reports.
Reuters reported that according to Nurjahan Begum, the chief of Bangladesh’s health ministry, “over 1,000 people have been killed and over 400 students have lost their eyesight.”
Eventually, PM Hasina — who had been in power since 2009 and previously ruled for another five years in the 1990s — resigned and fled to neighbouring India as a result of the pivotal move, which is now being called the “Gen Z revolution”. Bangladesh Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman announced her departure and immediately took charge, while President Mohammed Shahabuddin ordered the release of opposition leader and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia from house arrest.
A few days later, on 8 August, Muhammad Yunus, an economist and Bangladesh’s Nobel Peace laureate, was sworn in as the interim head of the state. His advisers include Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuyain, the 26-year-old Dhaka University students who are among the leaders of the ‘Anti-discrimination Student Movement’.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched keyframes from the viral video and came across the same clip (archive) on YouTube channel Sajjad Reviews, uploaded on 2 January 2022, with the title, “পাকিস্তানে বাংলাদেশি ও পাকিস্তানি পতাকা উত্তোলন করে মানুষ আল্লাহ আকবরের স্লোগান দেয় [In Pakistan, people raise Bangladeshi and Pakistani flags and chant Allahu Akbar]”.
The red bricks, as well as the building’s structure, indicate it is likely somewhere in Lahore, so we checked various places in Punjab’s capital and narrowed it down to the Lahore Arts Council, popularly known as Alhamra. Subsequently, we spoke to a resident of the same city and they confirmed that it was indeed the same location.
At the 25-second mark in the viral clip, as well as at the 24-second mark in the aforementioned video on YouTube, a statue is visible for a fleeting moment. The same is visible on Google Maps, embedded below, and the knowledge panel — information boxes that appear on the right side when one searches for different entities, including people, places, and organisations — when using the term “Alhamra Arts Council” as an input.
The statue can also be seen in an image available on the provincial government’s website for Alhamra.
The words “ADMIN BLOCK” visible on top of the building’s entrance in the video can also be seen in the Google Maps link above.
Our reverse image search also led us to this piece by FactWatch, a Bangladeshi outlet accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), of which Soch Fact Check is also a signatory, which debunked the same claim after it went viral there.
While Soch Fact Check was unable to verify whether students carried flags of Bangladesh in Alhamra on 2 January 2022 or before that date or why they did so, the incident definitely predates the 2024 protests that led to the ousting of Sheikh Hasina from power.
Therefore, Soch Fact Check concludes that the claim is false.
Virality
Virk’s post has garnered over 62,800 views, as of writing time.
Soch Fact Check also found the video posted here, here, here, and here on Facebook. Some of the most viewed posts can be found here, here, and here, where they were viewed more than 24,000, 13,000, and 12,000 times, respectively. It was shared as a still image here.
We also came across a 24 August 2024 report — titled “’بھارت سے زیادہ محبت پاکستان نے دی‘، بنگلہ دیشی پاکستان کی تعریف کرنے لگے [‘Pakistan gave us more love than India’, Bangladeshis begin praising Pakistan]” — by Dawn News Urdu, which carried a screenshot of the same video on Facebook as authentic.
The video was also posted on YouTube, where it was viewed upwards of 4,300 times.
Conclusion: The video has no connection to the 2024 student protests in Bangladesh. It existed online as early as January 2022.
Background image in cover photo: Kashif Afridi
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