Claim- Dr Yunus has banned Ganesh Puja in Bangladesh.
Fact- There are no such notices from the govt or the Ministry of Religious Affairs
Recently, a post has gone viral, asserting that Dr Muhammad Yunus, the head of Bangladesh’s interim government, has prohibited Ganesh Puja in 2024. The viral claims state that Ganesh Puja has been banned this year, with some posts specifically mentioning a prohibition in Chittagong. See the posts here, here and here.
Newschecker has verified this claim and found it to be false.
Fact check/Verification
Through extensive and pertinent keyword searches concerning the viral post, we could not locate any reports or notices attributed to the interim government’s leader, Dr. Mohammad Yunus, or the government’s religious affairs advisor, concerning the prohibition of Ganesh Puja in Bangladesh this year. Furthermore, media coverage is absent on the issue. See the website of the Ministry of Religious Affairs here. We did not find anything such as the Ganesh Puja Ban on the Hindu Welfare Trust site either.
Where did it all begin?
In the course of verifying the claim regarding the alleged ban on Ganesh Puja in Bangladesh by Dr. Yunus, we conducted extensive investigations that led us to the claim’s origin. For further context, you can refer to the posts on X (1, 2 & 3).
Notably, all of these posts sharing the claim were published on the same day, September 7, 2024.
All these posts were tweeted just after the day of a clash in Chittagong. A post on September 6, 2024, went viral during an alleged clash between Muslims and Hindu devotees while the Hindu devotees were passing by a mosque with the deity of lord Ganesh in the Cheragi Pahar Mor area, Chittagong. According to the claim Muslims from the mosque allegedly threw hot water on the crowd passing by with the deity of Lord Ganesh. See such posts here, here and here.
There were many counter-posts from the Muslims as well. The counter posts claimed that the crowd of Hindu devotees paused their journey in front of Kadam Mobarak Madrassah and Orphanage and played loud music. When the students of the Madrassah requested them to lower the volume they allegedly tortured an underage boy named Nayan(14) who was also a student of that Madrassah. See the counter post here. According to the counter posts the witnesses of the incident did not watch anything like throwing hot water on the Hindu devotees and breaking the idol of Lord Ganesh.
courtesy: Facebook/User
Later the military and police of that area took charge of the situation.
It was covered by a few local dailies as well. See here- Daily Ajadi & Daily Bangladesh. Newschecker could not independently verify every claim made on social media about this incident.
Aside from the isolated incident, we were unable to locate any official government news reports or notices regarding a ban on the celebration of Ganesh Puja this year.
Conclusion
Therefore, the Ganesh Puja celebration ban in BD by Dr. Muhammad Yunus is a rumour.
Result: False
Our Sources:
Ministry of Religious Affairs
Daily Ajadi & Daily Bangladesh.
