AI-generated clips falsely claim weapons seizures in Bangladesh, police and fact-checkers say
Bangladeshi authorities have recently confiscated guns and knives during routine police operations, but a wave of viral social media clips claiming to show large weapons seizures at a university and a religious school is fabricated. Police and fact-checkers say the footage was generated using AI, and it has fueled tensions in a country already on edge over political violence.
One Facebook reel, viewed 17,000 times and shared more than 900 times, shows police officers standing in a bedroom surrounded by recovered guns. Its Bengali caption says the weapons were found in the room of a Chhatra Dal secretary at Barishal University. Chhatra Dal is the student wing of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Another reel, viewed more than 5,000 times, shows a man seated in front of a table full of guns while soldiers stand nearby, with a caption claiming a large cache was recovered from a Noakhali madrassa kitchen and that the headmaster was detained.
The clips began circulating as Bangladeshi authorities stepped up seizures of firearms, bomb-making materials, and knives. In Dhaka, police recovered and defused homemade bombs left outside a grocery store and inside an umbrella at a metro station, prompting widespread panic.
Political violence remains a serious problem despite assurances from the BNP-led government that took over after the 2024 revolution that ousted Sheikh Hasina and after February elections brought the country’s first elected government since the uprising. Rights groups point to political rivalries, weak law enforcement, and a culture of impunity as driving factors behind continued clashes. Police statistics show an average of at least 10 murders a day, including 1,238 murders between March and June.
An AFP review found clear signs of AI manipulation. In the video from the university, an official’s jacket has distorted lettering, two police officers appear without name tags, and multiple crime-scene markers are numbered identically. In the madrassa clip, the building’s signage is garbled, army personnel wear incorrect badges, and background security officials wear uniforms not used in Bangladesh. Google’s SynthID tool also detected invisible watermarks on the visuals, indicating they were made using Google’s AI models.
Local officials dismissed the claims. Rakibul Bari, a police constable in Barishal, said there were “no reports of any such activities regarding weapons in the university.” NM Nasiruddin, a police superintendent in Noakhali district, called the videos “completely baseless.” Fact-checking organizations Boom and FactWatch have also debunked the posts.
The false videos have fed the climate of fear. Some social media users accepted them as real. “Chhatra Dal is synonymous to terrorist, extortionist, thug, or rapist,” one commenter wrote on a post showing the university clip. The episode underscores how quickly AI-generated disinformation can spread in politically tense environments, complicating the work of journalists and authorities trying to maintain public trust.