By Srijit Das
An old video of a group of people vandalising a Hindu temple has been revived with a false claim that the incident happened in a temple in Sri Lanka.
The same video was earlier viral as an incident of West Bengal. BOOM had then found that the video shows an old incident, which happened on August 4, 2021, when a mob vandalised a Hindu temple in Pakistan's Rahim Yar Khan district.
In the video, an angry mob break the entrance door, enter the temple and start vandalising the interiors. Some people can be seen breaking glasses, pelting stones inside the temple while others record the act on their phones.
The video is doing rounds with a claim that the incident took place in Sri Lanka.
We received the video on our WhatsApp tipline number (7700906588) with a request for verification.
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Fact Check
BOOM had debunked the same video in August 2021 when it went viral with another false claim that the incident happened in West Bengal.
We then performed a related keyword search and found several news articles carrying screengrabs from the viral video. The reports mentioned that the incident took place in Pakistan's Punjab province.
Pakistan-based news organisation The Dawn reported about the incident on August 5, 2021. An excerpt from the report reads, "Hundreds of people reportedly vandalised a Hindu temple in Bhong town (60km from here) and blocked the Sukkur-Multan Motorway (M-5) after a nine-year old Hindu boy, who allegedly urinated in a local seminary, was granted bail by a local court on Wednesday."
Pakistani parliamentarian Dr. Ramesh Kumar Vankwani from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party also tweeted the same video on August 4, 2021, calling out the negligence by the local police regarding the incident.
Erstwhile Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan took to Twitter to condemn the attack on the temple on August 5, 2021.
We also found a video about the reopening of the desecrated Hindu temple from August 11, 2021, on AP Archive's official YouTube channel
The description with the video states that the authorities arrested dozens of attackers and said that they would pay for the repair work of the temple. On August 11, 2021, patron-in-chief of Pakistan Hindu Council Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani along with other community was present during the inauguration of the rehabilitated temple.
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