A video is being shared on social media claiming it as recent visuals of Afghan extremists vandalising a Hindu temple in Afghanistan. The video shows a Muslim mob destroying statues of Hindu deities and infrastructure inside a temple. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of Afghan extremists destroying a Hindu temple in Afghanistan.
Fact: The video shared in the post shows a recent incident that took place in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. This video shows a group of Muslims vandalising a Hindu temple in Bhong, a town in the eastern Punjab province of Pakistan. This video has nothing to do with Afghanistan. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the screenshots in the video, similar visuals were found in a video published by the ‘CNN-News 18’ YouTube channel on 05 August 2021. This news channel reported it as the visuals of a Muslim mob vandalising a Hindu temple in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Reporting the same, a few other news websites published similar videos on their YouTube channels. They can be seen here and here.
Reporting the complete details of this incident, the ‘Al Jazeera’ news website published an article on 10 August 2021. According to the article, a group of Muslims destroyed a Hindu temple in Bhong, a town in the eastern Punjab province of Pakistan. This incident took place on 04 August 2021. The Muslim mob was allegedly angry at a court judgement for granting bail to an 8-year-old Hindu boy who was accused in a blasphemy case. The Punjab district police authorities have arrested 90 suspects involved in this attack. The Pakistan Government reportedly completed the restoration work of the temple and handed it over to the Hindu community within a week. Reporting the same, ‘The Hindu’ news website published an article on 10 August 2021.
To sum it up, a video of a Muslim mob vandalising a Hindu temple in Pakistan is falsely shared as visuals from Afghanistan.
