.svg)
The Daily Dazzling Dawn Fact Check has uncovered a malicious campaign attempting to demonize Bangladesh and stoke communal tensions by spreading a completely fabricated story of 'love jihad' and domestic violence. This propaganda effort is leveraging photos of a popular Bangladeshi actress, Jouty Islam, to create a bogus narrative of a Hindu woman, allegedly named Nandini Mandal, being brutally assaulted by her Muslim husband, Abdul Adil Khan, after converting to Islam.
This story is 100% bogus and a clear attempt at an anti-Bangladesh smear campaign. Our investigation reveals that the viral images, circulating with inflammatory claims, are completely taken out of context from the actress's professional work, not a real-life incident of brutality.
The claims suggest that Nandini Mandal, after marrying a Muslim man and converting, was assaulted and thrown out. However, our rigorous fact-checking process confirms the woman in the photos is the prominent Bangladeshi actress Jouty Islam.
The Truth Behind the Viral Images
The post relies on two main images: one showing a couple labeled as "Hindu" and "Muslim," and a second, graphic image of a woman with a severely burnt face, allegedly the aftermath of the assault.
The first image of the couple is actually a movie poster. We traced this photo to Jouty Islam’s social media, where it is clearly identifiable as the promotional art for a film whose Bangla title translates to "Widow Wife." It has absolutely no connection to any purported real-life Nandini Mandal or Abdul Adil Khan.
The second, distressing image of the woman with a burnt face is from a film shoot, where the burn marks are clearly the result of professional makeup and special effects. A reverse image search led us to a video posted by Jouty Islam on her own Facebook account, where she is seen with the same makeup. In the post's comments, she explicitly clarifies that the video is part of a "shooting sequence" for a film, which she mentions is titled "Ami Nusrat Bolchi" (I am Nusrat Speaking). The image being shared across social media platforms is merely a still from this behind-the-scenes footage.
More Examples of Coordinated Smears
This incident is not isolated. Propagandists often employ similar tactics to create a false impression of widespread communal conflict and instability in Bangladesh:
Recycling Old or Unrelated Images: Fabricated stories about temple vandalism or attacks on minorities in Bangladesh frequently use photos that are years old, from a different country entirely, or even show the aftermath of natural disasters, passing them off as recent communal violence.
Mislabeling Individuals and Events: Actresses, models, or ordinary citizens are often falsely identified as victims or perpetrators in made-up communal incidents, just as Jouty Islam's identity was stolen and twisted into the fictional "Nandini Mandal."
Weaponizing Foreign Media: Bogus, inflammatory stories are created and aggressively pushed across digital platforms, particularly on social media, with the clear intent to mislead international audiences and policymakers about the social fabric and law and order situation in Bangladesh.
In summary, the sensational story of a Hindu woman being brutalized by her Muslim husband after conversion is entirely fabricated. The viral photos are not documentation of a crime but stills from a Bangladeshi actress’s film projects. This attempt to communalise and spread hate speech using falsehoods against Bangladesh has been thoroughly exposed by the Daily Dazzling Dawn Fact Check team.
.jpg)