(TibetanReview.net, Nov28’25) – Nepali Police have given a clean chit to a group called TOB (Tibetan Original Brother/Blood) for their alleged link to either pro-Tibetan activities or vandalism during the September Gen Z protests in Kathmandu, reported thenepalweekly.com Nov 25. After interrogating youths associated with TOB including Tenzing Dawa Lama, who became controversial during the Gen Z movement on Sep 8 at Naya Baneshwor, the police have thoroughly investigated the matter, the report said.
The report cited the Kathmandu District Police Circle as saying TOB is a bikers’ group formed on Jun 10, 2024 with the aim to organize motorbike tours, gatherings, partying and getting involved in social works. On Sep 8, during the Gen Z movement, around 20 of its total of 57 members, mostly college boys aged between 16 and 20, had reached Bijulibazar area on their bullet bikes to participate in the agitation.
Tenzing has a mixed Tibetan-Nepali parentage but was brought up by his grandfather and lived with his aunt after the latter passed away. There is no information about his father and mother.
The only mistake Tenzing committed was he shouted “We want back our land” at that time for which he had already apologized, SP Pawan Kumar Bhattarai, who is also the spokesperson for Kathmandu District Police, has said.
Bhattarai has also explained that a video showing a pistol along with the TOB youths’ bike rally in the social media had been taken some six months earlier during a music video shooting and it was only a toy pistol, not a real one.
The police had seized 13 Bullet motorbikes and one Pulsar motorbike from them during the investigation. They will be returned soon in the presence of their parents, Bhattarai has added.
He has made it clear that the group was not involved in any kind of demonstration or vandalism or arson during the second day of the agitation.
The boys were wearing T-shirts with the logo of TOB letters along with Dragon and a bridge. The dragon symbolizes “warier” (Warrior?) while bridge symbolizes friendship and peace, the police have explained,
All are expected to be released after “further investigate into the group’s possible involvement in other suspicious activities”.
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The TOB acronym first came into prominence after multiple photos and videos on social media showed it emblazoned on the back of the black T-shirts worn by a few young men who took part in the Gen Z protests. Various interpretations of the acronym flooded social media, from ‘Tibetan Original Bloodline’, and ‘Tibetan Original Blood’, to, quite confoundingly, ‘The Balen Team’, noted the kathmandupost.com Oct 13.
And what started as online curiosity swiftly spiralled into a wave of disinformation, racialised narratives, and hate speech, with some anonymous handles going as far as issuing death threats to Tibetans in Nepal, the report said.
The controversy was stated to have taken off after a Facebook page called HTP Khabar posted a video by journalist Diwakar Sah who vaguely alluded to people wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the three letters, claiming he feared for his safety, that he was scared he might be killed if he revealed more.
The report continued that amid this swirl of speculations, the most popular narrative that emerged was that TOB stood for “Tibetan Original Bloodline,” and that members of the Tibetan refugee community were behind the protests. Hundreds of social media users, if not thousands, were then quick to accuse the community members of vandalism, extremism, and attempting to “hijack” the Gen Z movement.
The online comments soon turned flagrantly xenophobic, with some calling for Nepalis of Tibetan origin to be attacked, expelled, killed or worse. Later when a Nepali woman of Tibetan ethnicity, a climate activist, was stated to be slated for appointment as a minister in the interim government, the Gen Z group from her province voiced opposition while demanding that she be investigated as regards her citizenship and likelihood of involvement in “Free Tibet” movement.
Nepali Citizens of Tibetan ethnicity inhabit the length of northern Nepal, adjoining Tibet, but have remained grossly under-represented in the country’s governing structure due to their small population and the dispersal of their land into various districts and provinces of the country.
The report cited Surendra Gurung, popularly known as Hakim, who is a rapper, artist, and adviser to the group that was photographed during the uprising as saying the TOB group had no links to the Free Tibet movement, any external forces, or acts of vandalism. He had called the online allegations wrong and harmful.