Fact Check: Does this video show 5,000-year-old Bharat Mata temple being demolished in Varanasi?
A video of a bulldozer demolishing a temple is viral on social media. It is being claimed that a 5,000-year-old Bharat Mata temple was demolished in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, to construct the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 1 May 2022 8:02 AM GMT
Hyderabad: A video of a bulldozer demolishing a temple is viral on social media. It is being claimed that a 5,000-year-old Bharat Mata temple was demolished in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, to construct the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor.
Social media users are sharing the video with the caption, "According to the news, about 200 temples/shivling had to be demolished to build the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor. There was a Bharat Mata temple which was about 5,000 years old. Everything was demolished."
FACT CHECK:
NewsMeter performed a reverse image search and found reports from September 2021 that carried the same video. According to Asianet Suvarna News, Times Now, and ETV Bharat, the video shows the demolition of the Mahadevamma temple in Nanjangud taluk in Mysore, Karnataka.
The temple was demolished as per the 2009 orders of the Supreme Court. Chief Minister Bavaraj Bommai ordered the demolition of unauthorised temples and based on this chief secretary P. Ravi Kumar had written to all district deputy commissioners in the state to demolish around 6,000 temples.
According to an Outlook magazine report, the temple was on a list of illegal religious structures across the state that were to be razed for encroachment. The drive was to comply with the 2009 Supreme Court order and was being monitored by the Karnataka High Court.
The claim that a 5,000-year-old Bharat Mata temple was demolished is not new. In 2018, when political leaders claimed that the shivlings recovered from the debris dumped in Varanasi belonged to a temple demolished for constructing Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, the police had refuted the claims and said that the shivlings belonged to a dilapidated temple in Ganesh Mohal locality two km away and not to any temple in the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor. (Read here)
In 2019, when the same allegations were made, Newslaundry contacted the Archaeological Survey of India and was told that none of the temples in the area were older than the 17th century and that the Bharat Mata temple in question was intact. (Read here)
Clearly, the viral video does not show a 5,000-year-old Bharat Mata temple being demolished to construct the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor.
