By AFP
New Delhi (AFP) – Protesters in Nepal ousted the prime minister and set parliament ablaze over the government’s ban on social media and corruption allegations — but in neighbouring India, the violence is being misrepresented online as something else entirely: a religious uprising.
While some claim that the demonstrations are a demand for a “Hindu state”, others say the opposite — that they are an attack on the faith.
Fuelling the narrative are allegations from Indian broadcasters and politicians that rioters vandalised Nepal’s Pashupatinath temple, a revered Hindu site in the Himalayan nation.
“Some rioters, hiding within the crowd of protesters, attempted to vandalise the temple, and it was only after this incident that the army was deployed,” an anchor for the right-wing Zee News television channel said in a report featuring a clip of people climbing onto the temple’s gate and violently shaking it.
Jivesh Mishra, a member of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in eastern Bihar state, which shares a border with Nepal, told reporters on Wednesday: “An attack on a temple is an attack on (the) Hindu faith.”
Right-wing influencers also amplified the claim to their thousands of followers.
But AFP fact-checkers traced the footage to a religious ritual called Naxal Bhagwati Jatra, filmed weeks before the violence.
This story was originally published in france24.com. Read the full story here.
