Misinform Thy Neighbour: Indian Users Share Fake News Amid Unrest in South Asia
Indians make up a majority of active social media users, and are just as prevalent in spreading misinformation.
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In September 2025, Nepal saw massive protests, led by Gen-Z, against rampant corruption in the country. The neighbouring state, formerly a Hindu monarchy, successfully ousted their prime minister and brought in a new leader.
Amid these violent demonstrations, news organisation NDTV India shared a video of people scaling the gates of the Pashupatinath temple, claiming that protesters had vandalised the Hindu temple.
This video went viral among social media users in India. However, the incident predated the recent protests and in reality, showed people observing a festival.
We found that the video was old.
(Source: The Quint)
On several occasions, especially during protests and unrest, people tend to fall prey to, and further share, misinformation, as it appeals to their emotions, feeds into fear, leading to polarisation in society.
Even if this misinformation is debunked, people continue to believe claims which align with their views.
With Indians making up a sizeable chunk of users on social media platforms, we inevitably spread misinformation when it comes to our neighbours.
India has the fourth highest number of X users in the world. View here.
India has Facebook's largest user base. View here.
Indians are Instagram's top active users. View here.
For instance, a foreign affairs journalist with WION shared a post claiming that Nepal's former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli was the "first and only" Nepali prime minister who had never visited India while in office.
Well, that's not true. Oli had visited India during both his terms, in 2016 and 2018, and was set to visit India in September 2025 before he resigned.
Nepal's President Ram Chandra Poudel was also a target of misinformation. Shortly after Oli's resignation, Indian news organisations such as Republic World, CNN-News 18 and Deccan Herald broke news of Poudel's alleged resignation. (Swipe)
Republic News.
News 18.
This claim was false, too. A simple Google search led us to the website of the Nepali president's office, which still shows Poudel as president.
Poudel is President of Nepal as on 15 September 2025.
(Source: Office of the President of Nepal/Screenshot)
While protesters set the Parliament and ministers' houses ablaze, a section of news and social media shared photographs to claim that a former prime minister's wife was also set on fire and later succumbed to the attack.
Calls for 'Hindu Rashtra'?
Amid rising pro-Hindutva sentiments and a call for Hindu-only regions in India, a section of social media shared visuals of the anti-corruption protests, claiming that the Gen-Z protesters demanded the same in Nepal.
Several posts claimed that the protesters were calling for a Hindu state.
(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)
During the March 2025 protest, some participants carried posters of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, stirring a controversy.
The visuals from this pro-monarchy protest were shared by Indian social media users, hailing Adityanath, falsely claiming that the Nepali protesters desired a leader like him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Both visuals have no connection to the recent protests.
(Source: The Quint)
Same Narratives, Different Neighbour
These narratives aren't new. Whenever there is unrest in our neighbouring countries, Team WebQoof, through its fact-checks, found repeating themes and patterns.
For Nepal, we saw the false claim about the Pashupatinath temple. Being a Hindu majority country, we did not see claims about Hindus being under attack.
This was not the case when former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted amid violent, student-led protests in August 2024.
A significant portion of the claims we debunked carried communal misinformation, which shared unrelated visuals to falsely claim that they showed Hindus being targeted for their religion.
In one such case, a two-minute video showing violence and distressed people was shared claiming to show communal attacks against Hindus. Our team found six instances of misinformation within this video alone, as detailed in this fact-check.
'Attacks on Hindus' was a predominant narrative.
(Source: The Quint)
Some of the most viral claims Indians shared involved videos of women, which were all shared to claim that they belonged to the Hindu community and were targeted by Muslims over their religion.
In these cases, we found that the women attacked belonged to the Muslim community itself, and were attacked due to their association with the Bangladesh Awami League, making the motive political, not religious.
Indian users behind misinformation: The hashtag 'Save Bangladeshi Hindus', which was trending on X in India during the violence surrounding the regime change.
Despite widespread coverage and concerns about legitimate attacks against religious minorities in Bangladesh during this period, some of the most viral posts still carried dis- or misinformation to spread narratives.
Bangladeshi fact-checking initiative Rumor Scanner found that 72 percent of the accounts spreading misinformation about the violence there were "located in India," which we explored in our analysis.
Several bad actors used similar communal narratives and Artificial Intelligence tools to propagate viral misinformation, which made its way across borders.
Cross-border misinformation saw a video from Pakistan, of people vandalising a temple, being shared as one from Bangladesh. The video was shared to claim that apart from Hindu people, Hindu sites were also targeted in the aftermath of the protests.
Moreover, a video showing sectarian vandalism, where people demolished a Sufi Shrine in Bangladesh, was falsely shared as one of a Muslim mob breaking down a Hindu temple.
Leaders and Governments Targeted
Just like we saw false claims about former Nepal PM Oli and visuals of UP CM Yogi Adityanath, misinformation surrounded Hasina, too.
A fake quote about the USA being responsible for the uprising went viral in the media, where news organisations such as The Economic Times, Moneycontrol, and Firstpost misattributed the statement to Hasina.
The quote was fabricated.
(Source: The Quint)
However, Hasina's son, Sajeeb Wazed, denied that his mother made any such statement and called it "false and fabricated."
AI also came into play when a deepfake of Hasina discussing aynaghars or detention camps was shared, claiming that she admitted to locking up and torturing people opposing her in them during an interview with the BBC.
Similarly, a misinformation war during Operation Sindoor saw Indians sharing a deepfake of Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, claiming that he 'accepted defeat' saying, "My heart says that if this situation continues, Pakistan might soon be captured by the enemy."
Unrelated Visuals Shared to Misinform
Like the video from Pakistan being falsely shared as one from Bangladesh, visuals of people using luxurious rooms and swimming in massive pools went viral on social media, where users claimed it showed protesters inside Hasina's house after she fled the country.
However, this claim was false. They dated back to July 2022 and showed Sri Lankan protesters at former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's official residence, amid economic and political crises in the country.
During the political crisis in Sri Lanka, several Indian social media users shared a video to claim that the semi-nude people in the clip were Sri Lankan ministers. "The Indian government has banned every news from Sri Lanka to avoid a similar situation in India," they claimed.
In reality, the video showed protesters assaulting prisoners who were let out for civil construction work.
In times when information spreads as fast as the wind blows, being able to access credible, verified information is imperative to prevent a bad situation from getting worse.
To know what you can do to verify things you see during breaking news events, watch this video from our series 'Verify Kiya Kya?'.
(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9540511818 , or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)