After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a landslide victory in the West Bengal elections in May 2026, reports of violence against the state’s Muslim community fuelled misinformation online. The latest claim shared a video falsely alleging it showed the destruction of a Muslim’s grave in India. In fact, the footage shows authorities clearing an old graveyard in Indonesia to make way for new burials.
“After the demolition of mosques belonging to Muslims in India, graveyards are now being demolished,” reads a Bengali-language Facebook post shared on May 31.
The attached 22-second video, shared more than 46,000 times, shows a bulldozer digging up an old grave in a cemetery.
Screenshot of falsely shared Facebook post taken on June 17, with red X mark added by AFP
The footage has circulated elsewhere on Facebook with similar claims.
Indian media reported the Muslim community and their properties in West Bengal were targeted after Modi’s BJP won a landslide victory in the state elections, ending the All India Trinamool Congress’s 15-year rule (archived here, here and here).
Days after coming into power, the BJP also ordered detention centres to be set up for undocumented Bangladeshis and Rohingyas in the state as part of a broader crackdown on illegal migration (archived link).
But the circulating clip was not filmed in West Bengal.
Video from Bali
A reverse image search using keyframes led to a June 1 X post by Jakarta-based media outlet Haluan Media that shared a mirrored video showing the same scene (archived link).
Its Indonesian-language caption says it shows an old tomb being dug up on the island of Bali, while the superimposed text says it was to make way for new burials.
Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (L) and the X video
Another local outlet also reported on the exhumation, saying it shows the situation with limited burial land that was starting to hit several densely populated areas in Bali (archived link).
AFP was able to geolocate the site of the exhumation to the Palasari Community Cemetery in Bali (archived link).
Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (L) and Google Street View imagery, with corresponding elements highlighted by AFP
AFP has debunked other misinformation around the West Bengal elections.
