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Youth-led protests swept Nepal and ousted its authorities in September, however a video of a demonstrator catching and throwing a tear gasoline canister was not taken within the Himalayan nation. The clip was shot in Pakistan and has circulated in a Could 2022 report about protests in opposition to the removing of former prime minister Imran Khan.
“Amid protests within the streets, a boy caught a tear gasoline shell like a cricket ball and threw it again. This video is viral in Nepal,” reads a Hindi-language Fb put up shared on September 10, 2025.
It shares a video of a protester catching and hurling away a tear gasoline canister in a road, with overlaid English-language textual content that repeats the declare.
Screenshot of the false put up, taken September 23, 2025
The identical video unfold alongside related claims on X, Instagram and Fb after demonstrations in opposition to a social media ban in Nepal boiled over into wider protests in opposition to corruption in September (archived hyperlink).
At the least 73 folks have been killed and veteran prime minister KP Sharma Oli was pressured to stop within the nation’s worst unrest for the reason that finish of a decade-long civil warfare and the abolition of monarchy in 2008.
Sushila Karki, the 73-year-old former chief justice, has been appointed interim prime minister and is tasked with addressing protester calls for for a corruption-free future forward of elections in March (archived hyperlink).
However the circulating video was not taken in Nepal.
A reverse picture search on Google utilizing the video’s keyframes discovered Pakistan-based web site Prosports had printed screenshots from the clip in a report on Could 25, 2022, with a headline that stated the video confirmed a protester hurling the tear gasoline canister again at police in Punjab (archived hyperlink).
The report was printed as former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who had been faraway from workplace in a no-confidence vote the earlier month, launched a nationwide march on Could 25, 2022 to name for elections (archived right here and right here).
Protesters have been stopped by barricades at a number of locations and photographs confirmed police personnel charging at marchers at Lahore’s Bati chowk and Niazi chowk.
AFP was in a position to affirm the video was shot in Punjab’s capital Lahore based mostly on a “Complete Parco” petrol station signal — the corporate manages gasoline stations in Pakistan — and a show board studying “Niazi Chowk Station”, which will be seen in the next high quality model of the clip embedded within the Prosports report (archived right here and right here).
Screenshot comparability between the false put up video (left) and the footage shared on X (proper)
The pedestrian bridge above the Niazi Chowk Metrobus station seen within the footage corresponds to a geotagged picture on Google Maps (archived hyperlink).
Screenshot comparability of the X video (left) and a photograph of the pedestrian bridge at Niazi Chouk bus station on Google Maps (proper), with similarities marked by AFP
Pakistan’s Daybreak newspaper additionally shared a related video of officers capturing tear gasoline at protesters on Could 25, 2022, in an Instagram put up that stated Punjab police have been stopping “PTI supporters” from shifting ahead (archived hyperlink).
AFP has beforehand debunked misinformation associated to the Nepal protests right here.
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