Buddhist monks, activists, and various organisations have been sitting on protest at Bodh Gaya demanding handing over the management of the holy shrine of Mahabodhi Buddha Vihara to the Buddhists of India. Bihar Police also detained Buddhist monks who were on a hunger strike as part of the Mahabodhi Mahavihara Mukti Andolan (Liberation Movement). The protest began on February 12.
Amidst this, a video is being widely shared on social media platforms showing a few policemen charging batons at a monk. During the investigation, we found that the video is not from Bodh Gaya in Bihar but from Nepal.
Claim:
X user Atul Khodawal shared the viral video on the platform with a false claim.
Other users too are sharing the video with similar claims.
Investigation:
We started the investigation by uploading the video to the InVid tool and extracted keyframes from the same. We ran a Google reverse image search on these keyframes.
The logo, ‘Nepal Khabar’, was visible on one of the keyframes.
We then ran a reverse image search on this keyframe.
We found a reel posted on Facebook.
This indicated that the reel is from Nepal.
We found a video posted on the YouTube channel, PEMAS VLOG over 11 months ago.
We found similar visuals on a YouTube channel, Sagarmatha TV posted 10 months ago.
We also found these visuals in a news report posted on Facebook by Laligurash Media Network
We also found a news report posted on 9th April 2024.
The report was titled: Departmental action against police officer who assaulted Buddhist Monk
It stated: The Police Headquarters has decided to take departmental action against the police officer who assaulted a Buddhist monk. The police officer who kicked a Buddhist monk in Bhadrakali during a protest by the National Revolution Movement led by Rajendra Mahato will take departmental action.
Conclusion: An old video of Nepal police assaulting a Buddhist monk is being shared as recent with misleading claims of Bihar police lathi-charging Buddhist monks in Bodh Gaya. The viral claim is misleading.
