‘Islamophobic, alarmist’: How some India outlets covered Bangladesh crisis

Indian media make claims linking China and Pakistani intelligence to Bangladesh protests and exaggerate scale of attacks on Hindus.

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Within hours of Sheikh Hasina’s removal from power after a student-led mass uprising, reports began to appear in some Indian media outlets that members of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh were being targeted by “Islamist forces”.

Articles and videos containing misleading content emerged across Indian media and social media platforms.

A video on The Times Group-owned Mirror Now’s YouTube channel, titled Attack on Hindus in Bangladesh? Mass Murders, Killings by Mob, shows footage of violence and arson attacks on four houses, two of them have been identified to be owned by Muslims. The title of the video is clearly misleading as there was no mass murders reported in the incident. Local reports say one of the houses belonged to Bangladesh’s freedom icon Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

The video also makes unsubstantiated claims, like “24 burnt alive by mob” and “Minorities at the centre of attacks”.

Al Jazeera has independently verified that only two Hindus have been killed since Hasina’s ouster on Monday – one police officer and one activist with Hasina’s Awami League party.

Hindus constitute about 8 percent of Bangladesh’s 170 million people and have traditionally been strong supporters of the Awami League, which is generally viewed as secular compared with the opposition coalition, which includes an Islamist party.

Many news reports of attacks on Hindus contain outlandish claims such as “more than one crore [10 million] refugees are likely to enter West Bengal soon”, which was made in a Times of India report that quoted Suvendu Adhikari, a senior leader of Prime Minister Narendra