The photos show Indians bathing in cow dung to prevent infection.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:, The post’s Hindi caption translates to English as: “As soon as BJP’s Suman Haripriya made an announcement that cow dung can cure coronavirus, people immediately jumped in the piles of cow dung.”, Suman Haripriya is a politician in India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In\xa0this\xa0report by Uttar Pradesh-based news channel\xa0News 18, it states she claimed cow dung and cow urine could be an effective remedy for COVID-19 during\xa0a March 2 budget session at the state assembly., The COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 8,800 people worldwide and infected almost 210,000 others, as reported here by AFP on March 19., The photos were also shared here, here and here on Facebook and here and here on Twitter, alongside a similar claim., The claim is false., A reverse image search on Google found\xa0this video published on the website for\xa0UK-based video agency Newsflare\xa0on October 30, 2019., The video description states, in part: “Cow dung from thousands of cattle in Thalavadi, Tamil Nadu and other surrounding villages, was piled up in heaps for people to grab handfuls and splat on one other. The villagers who described the festival as ‘Goraihabba’ say the absence of rainfall coinciding with the event celebration on the third day after Deepawalli, a Hindu religious festival.”, Below is a screenshot comparison of the photos in the misleading Facebook post (L) and screenshots of the Newsflare video (R):, The annual festival was also reported by other local and international media, including Noida-based news site\xa0Indian Express\xa0and Indian news channel Republic TV., , , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
These photos show India’s annual cow dung festival in October 2019 -- weeks before the coronavirus outbreak | AFP Fact Check