A claim made from Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) verified twitter handle, holding AL activists responsible for “setting a bus on fire” – citing a report published by the daily Prothom Alo – is a “misrepresentation” as the report does not justify the claim, authorities and observers say.
On July 29, 2023, a tweet posted from BNP’s official account states “#Dhaka @ProthomAlo reports how a bus was torched by @albd71 (Awami League) agents!”
A cropped excerpt from the report was added in the tweet but a detailed look at the report reveals no such comment was made by the driver that implicates AL activists in the arson.
Read:BNP’s sit-in programme marred by violence, arson
Shawkat Hossain, Head of Online at Prothom Alo, told the daily Shomoyer Alo: “Readers are requested to authenticate information from our website instead of relying on posts shared by other sources on social media, attributing news published by us. The report published by us does not say who set the bus on fire.”
Meanwhile, Prothom Alo has also called out a “disinformation campaign” on Facebook, referring to a post that has the familiar logo of the reputed newspaper with a title “Three BCL (AL’s student wing) activists arrested over attempt to set bus on fire.” The post had been doing the rounds on social media since reports emerged on the latest spate of street violence.
In addition to the tweet, BNP leaders including Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir echoed similar claims at a press conference saying “AL, agencies torched vehicles to blame BNP.”
“We have come to know that evil attempts are being made to blame BNP for the incidents of torching and vandalising vehicles at Matuail and Shyamoli. The members of the government agencies and cadres of the Awami League have carried out these incidents in a planned way with the help of police and recorded videos before fleeing on motorcycles,” he said.
Bangladesh Road Transport Owners Association and Bangladesh Road Transport Workers Federation issued a joint statement saying seven vehicles were burnt and 24 were damaged during BNP’s sit-in program.
Their statement also said that in 2014 and 2015, BNP-Jamaat men torched and vandalised 5,000 vehicles and killed 92 transport workers, adding that the activists are resorting to a similar type of violence.
An audio clip posted from BNP Media Cell’s verified Facebook page features BNP leader Nipun Roy Chowdhury claiming that senior party leader Gayeshwar Chandra Roy was “hit by bullets” but later it appeared he did not receive any bullet injuries.
BNP’s sit-in programme at the key entry points of Dhaka was marred by clashes and violence on Saturday, leaving an unspecified number of people injured and several vehicles torched and vandalized.