Rosario Monachino
A reporter was forced to eat a human brain with a cannibal cult while wearing a crown made of teeth.
Host and reporter Reza Aslan visited ‘the world’s most fascinating faith-based groups’ in a CNN programme called Believers.
In one episode, he travels to Varanasi – which is known as the ‘City of Dead’ – in northern India.
During his visit, Aslan meets a cannibalistic Hindu sect, a group known for their extreme rituals and beliefs.
Watch the reporter’s interaction with the cannibals below…
The reporter is shown sitting down with a few members and he is then given a piece of meat, which he is informed is chunks of a human brain.
He then proceeds to drink alcohol from a human skull.
Alsan is also made to wear a crown made of teeth and has his face covered in ashes from cremated humans.
At one point in the episode, one of the members of the sect berates the journalist and reportedly even threatens to ‘cut off his head if keeps talking so much’.
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Shortly after this, filming is wrapped up as Aslan tells the director he feels unsafe.
The sect then begins hurling faeces at the reporter and the rest of the CNN crew – leading to their retreat.
Before the episode aired, Aslan actually revealed what it was like to eat a human brain.
On Facebook, he said: “Want to know what a dead guy’s brain tastes like? Charcoal.
“It was burnt to a crisp!”
The episode was met with a backlash after airing in 2017 due to its portrayal of Hinduism – which is the fourth biggest religion in the world.
Vamsee Juluri, a media studies professor at the University of San Francisco, slammed CNN for ‘pushing reckless and grotesque images’ in an article for Huffington Post.
He described it as ‘unbelievably callous and reckless’ of the network to air the show during ‘a period of unprecedented concern and fear’ in the US.
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Juluri added that CNN should use its platform to humanise other cultures and they should be portrayed ‘with care’.
While Tulsi Gabbard, who was the first Hindu to be elected to the US Congress, tweeted: “I am very disturbed that CNN is using its power and influence to increase people’s misunderstanding and fear of Hinduism.”
Around the time the episode had aired, three Hindus and one Sikh had recently been shot – with two of them dying.
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