Claim: Protesters burn the Indian flag in Dhaka, Bangladesh, while holding India responsible for recent floods in the country.
Fact: The image is from 2009 when Muslims in Srinagar, in the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, burned the flag to celebrate Pakistan’s Independence Day.
On 24 August, Threads user @farjana_afrin_tanha claimed (archive), “BREAKING: Indian flag burned in Dhaka as sudden water release by India causes massive floods in Bangladesh.” The caption is accompanied by a picture of a protester setting fire to the Indian flag.
Torrential rains in eastern Bangladesh and northeast India have caused heavy floods, killing at least 36. In Bangladesh particularly, the flooding has affected nearly 4.5 million, killing 13 while another 200,000 have been evacuated.
This natural disaster comes only a few weeks after the country’s longest serving prime minister Sheikh Hasina, was ousted from power by violent student-led protests. Her government’s crackdown on protesters killed nearly 200.
Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, aged 84, is now leading the interim government that is expected to bring stability. Allegations by members of the interim government holding India responsible for flooding made it to the news. However, India has denied any responsibility, saying torrential rains are responsible, which have hit areas of the northeast area bordering India too.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched the image and found it appeared online as early as 2009, in various publications.
Initially, we found the image in question used as the cover photo in a January 2019 report about Sikhs burning Indian flags to protest the atrocities committed by India in Kashmir.
The image also appeared in a blog about India’s policy in Kashmir, published in August 2019 by Pak Defense, which confirmed to us that the photograph is not recent..
However, Soch Fact Check then found an article published by International Business Times in 2016 which included a similar image. Headlined, “Indian police hunt Chennai youth who burnt the national flag and posted the picture on Facebook”, the article credited the image to “TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP/Getty.”
Taking cues from this, Soch Fact Check conducted a keyword search and found the original stock photo by Getty Images. According to its caption here, the image was taken when Kashmiris celebrated Pakistan’s Independence Day in August 2009 in Srinagar, and burned the Indian flag.
Virality
The Threads post garnered 36 likes and was reposted 3 times.
It was also shared on X here and here (archive), where it received 95,000 views and was liked 5,400 times.
On Facebook here,
Conclusion: An image does not show protesters burning the Indian flag in Dhaka. In fact, the image has no connection to the recent floods in Bangladesh. It is from 2009 when Kashmiris celebrated Pakistan’s Independence Day in Srinagar.
Background image in cover photo: The Business Standard
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