Video shows illegal theme park structure in Indonesia being torn down, not mosque in India

Published on March 25, 2025 at 09:00
3 min read
By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India

Hindu-nationalist social media users have lauded the government of a north Indian state for purportedly tearing down a mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but the video they shared in fact shows the demolition of an illegal structure in an Indonesian theme park.

The clip of an excavator knocking down a building with a domed-top resembling a mosque was shared on X on March 11, 2025.

"Hindutva Live from Devbhoomi..I salute the Uttarakhand government and Pushkar Singh," reads part of the Hindi-language caption, which refers to the northern Indian state -- home to several Hindu pilgrimage sites -- as the "Land of Gods".

The state -- led by Pushkar Singh Dhami from the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- saw incidents of sectarian clashes in February and October 2024 as the Muslim minority community tried to prevent several mosque demolitions (archived links here and here).

Screenshot of the false post taken on March 20, 2025

The posts about a purported mosque demolition surfaced elsewhere on X and Facebook, shared by Hindu-nationalist accounts as Muslims around the world observed the holy month of Ramadan.

However, the structure is not a mosque and is located in an Indonesian theme park.

Illegal theme park structure

A Google reverse image search using keyframes from the clip found the same video posted on TikTok on March 8 (archived link). Its Indonesian-language captions state it shows demolitions at the Hibisc Fantasy Park in Puncak, a mountain pass in Indonesia's West Java province.

"This building is not a mosque, it was an Indian style building in a fantasy park," the caption continues in English.

Screenshot comparison of the video shared in false posts (left) and the clip uploaded on TikTok (right).

A longer version of the same video was shared on Facebook on March 14, 2025, similarly stating it showed the dismantling of the tourist spot in Indonesia (archived link).

Local news reports here and here said West Java Governor Dedi Mulyadi had ordered the demolition of unlicensed structures at the Hibisc Fantasy Park after flooding in early March killed three people (archived links here, here and here).

The development of the park had disrupted the natural forest cover in the area, contributing to the floods, the governor had said.

The structures seen in the circulating video correspond to those seen in images of the Indonesian theme park uploaded to Google Maps (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of visuals from the clip shared in false posts (left) and an image of Hibisc Fantasy Puncak available on Google Maps (right), with similarities highlighted by AFP

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