Claim
A TikTok video claiming that Chief of Army Staff Waker-uz-Zaman paid tribute to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15 has gone viral. August 15 is National Mourning Day in Bangladesh, commemorating the 1975 assassination of Bangabandhu and most of his family, making the alleged tribute by a high-ranking military official particularly significant.
The post propagating this claim can be seen here.
Fact
To verify the authenticity of the viral video, multiple relevant keyword searches led to finding a video on the YouTube channel of an online portal named ‘Nabodhara’ titled “Newly appointed Army Chief General Waker-uz-Zaman pays tribute at Bangabandhu’s tomb in Tungipara” published on June 25, 2024. The scenes in this video match those shown in the circulated video, supporting the claim.
The description of that video states that Army Chief General Waker-uz-Zaman reached Tungipara on Tuesday (June 25, 2024) at noon and laid a wreath to pay homage at Bangabandhu’s mausoleum.
Additionally, various media outlets published news reports about this event at that time. See here- DBC News & ATN.
Moreover, no news has been found that the Army Chief paid tribute at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s tomb on August 15 of this year, the death anniversary.
Notably, the interim government has decided not to observe eight national days, including March 7 and August 15 (National Mourning Day). An official order regarding this was issued last October.
Therefore, an old video of the Army Chief paying homage at Bangabandhu’s tomb has been circulated falsely as footage from this year’s August 15.
Result: False
Our Sources:
Nabadhara
ATN News
DBC News
This article was originally written by Sayeed Joy in Bengali
