A video (here, here, and here) featuring three different clips of buildings engulfed in flames is circulating on social media with a claim that it shows ‘Illegal Islamist structures’ demolished by the Nepal government following an attack on a Durga visarjan procession. It is also being said that ‘In a separate incident, angry Gen Z youths reportedly set a mosque on fire in retaliation.
This video is being shared in the context of people pelting stones and bottles at a Durga Visarjan procession in Nepal’s Janakpur, Madhesh Province, during this year’s Durga Visarjan (October 2025). According to reports from early October 2025, this led to communal tensions in the Telia Talab area (here, here, here, here, and here). We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Viral video shows illegal Islamist structures demolished by the Nepal government after the communal clashes at Janakpur, Nepal, following an attack on a Durga Visarjan procession in October 2025. It also shows a mosque set on fire by the Gen Z youth in retaliation for the attack.
Fact: This viral video has been available on the internet since 10 September 2025, long before the Janakpur stone-pelting incident, which occurred in October 2025. The video clips show vandalism at the Birgunj Mayor’s house and the Birgunj Metropolitan City office building. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To check the veracity of the viral video, we ran a keyword search on the internet to understand if the Nepal government has demolished illegal Islamist structures after the Durga Visarjan celebrations in Janakpur. However, we did not find any relevant news reports to support this claim, except for those about the clashes between two communities that occurred after the stone pelting incident and the actions taken by the police to control the situation (here, here, and here). Apart from that, we also looked for news reports related to Gen-Z’s burning of a mosque in retaliation, which also did not yield any related information.
To learn more about the viral claim, we performed a reverse image search on the internet using a few key frames from the viral video. This search led us to a TikTok post from 10 September 2025 that contained the same video. The video that contains the same clips seen in the viral video was shared on 10 September 2025 with a caption in the Nepali language that translates to ‘Serious situation in Birgunj area, Birgunj city’
This clearly negates the claim that it was filmed in October 2025 Durga Visarjan stone pelting and clashes incident in Janakpur, Nepal.
Clip 1
A reverse image search on a few keyframes from this clip led us to multiple old social media posts (from September 2025) showing the same building seen in the viral video (here, here, here, and here). As per these posts, these visuals show arson at the house of Birgunj mayor Rajesh Man Singh during Gen-Z protests (here, here, and here), which happened in September 2025.
In September 2025, India Today and PTI reported (here and here) on the vandalism and arson at Rajesh Man Singh during Gen-Z protests. The building depicted in the viral video matches the one described in these reports.
Clip 2
Through a reverse image search, we found a TikTok post made by ‘Nepal Post Daily’ Birgunj that continued visuals from the same building seen in the viral clip. As per the caption of this post, the video shows the ‘Birgunj Mahanagarpalika’ building (Birgunj Metropolitan City office building) on fire during the Nepal Gen-Z protests. We also found another video of the same building posted by ‘Birgunj sanjal’ on Facebook with a post description that reads ‘Today’s situation after the abuse, fire, and looting done at Birgunj Municipal Office ….’ Both these pages are local media outlets.
To verify the information provided in these posts, we searched for the Birgunj Metropolitan City office building on Google Maps and found a photo that matches completely with the visuals seen in these videos and the viral video.
Clip 3
Through a reverse image search, we found a few social media posts (here and here) that contained videos of the house of Birgunj mayor Rajesh Man Singh set ablaze by the Gen-Z protestors filmed from different angles.
Visuals from these videos confirmed that the third clip in the viral video shows the condition of Rajesh Man Singh’s house after vandalism and arson during the September 2025 Gen-Z protests.
To sum up, videos that predate the October 2025 Janakpur communal clashes in Nepal’s Madhesh Province are falsely shared as visuals of Nepali youth burning down a mosque and a government crackdown on illegal Islamic structures.
