A video (here and here) depicting a large-scale cow slaughter, with a pool of blood lying on the floor of what looks like the premises of an apartment complex, is doing the rounds on social media. It is claimed that this incident where allegedly around 200 cows were slaughtered had happened in West Bengal recently during the celebration of Bakrid. We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Video of 200 cows slaughtered during Bakrid 2024 in West Bengal.
Fact: This video was filmed in a residential complex in Bangladesh’s Dhaka, not West Bengal, India. Hence,the claim made in the post is Misleading.
To check the veracity of the viral claim, we performed a reverse image search on a few of the viral video’s keyframes. This search led us to an ‘X’ post by a user named ‘Ashwini Shrivastava’ from July 2023. This post contained the same video. The post’s description identified the location where the video was shot as Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Taking this as a hint, we checked for news reports from Bangladesh but did not find any. A further search for residential complexes in Dhaka, Bangladesh, led us to videos (here, here, and here) on YouTube that contained visuals matching the buildings seen in the viral video.
The videos featured Shopnonagar/Swpnanagar residential flat project buildings, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
A further search also led us to an aerial video of the Swpnanagar residential flat buildings that clearly shows the buildings featured in the viral video.
One is the larger building in cream colour and the other is a relatively smaller building in front of which the cows are seen slaughtered in the viral video.
Additionally, a video creator uploaded a video filmed in the Swpnanagar residential flat buildings on Facebook in August 2022.
In this video, too, you can see the buildings seen in the viral video.
The same building is also clearly visible in a few google photos (here and here) uploaded by the users and also on Google Earth.
Although we could not independently verify details about the quantum of cows/animals slaughtered when the incident happened or what the occasion was, since the video has been geo-located to Mirpur, Bangladesh, and not West Bengal as claimed in the viral social media post, the claim is misleading.
To sum up, an old video from Bangladesh is falsely being shared as visuals of ‘cow slaughter’ during Bakrid in West Bengal.
