A video of a massive crowd has recently gone viral on social media platforms, including Facebook and TikTok. It is being claimed that the gathering shown in the video is from a rally of Sheikh Hasina, the President of the Awami League.
Titled “Millions of People Gather at Sheikh Hasina’s Rally,” the video has already been viewed more than 1 million times. Additionally, it has received over 75,000 reactions and has been shared nearly 3,000 times across various accounts.
However, this same video had previously surfaced online in 2023, with similar claims made across different internet platforms. At that time, investigative efforts by the Rumor Scanner Team revealed that the video was not from a public rally of Sheikh Hasina, the former Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Instead, the footage was from a Rath Yatra festival held in the city of Puri in Odisha, India, in 2023.
Upon investigation, key frames from the video were analyzed using reverse image search. This led to the discovery of a YouTube channel named New-age Spirituality. On July 1, 2023, the channel had published a short video titled Rath Yatra, which matched the viral video frame by frame. The caption accompanying the video confirmed that it was captured during the Rath Yatra festival in Puri, Odisha, India.
Further exploration led to another YouTube channel named Traveller Bhaiya Ji, where a video titled Rath Yatra Puri 2023 (Odisha) Drone View was found. Published on June 23, 2023, this video also depicted similar visuals, confirming that the viral footage is from the Jagannath Rath Yatra held in Puri on June 20, 2023.
During the investigation, a video report was also found on the official YouTube channel of the Indian media outlet The Indian Express. Published on June 20, 2023, the report provided further confirmation that the massive crowd was from the Rath Yatra festival in Puri, Odisha.
In conclusion, the viral video being circulated as Sheikh Hasina’s public rally is entirely false. The footage is actually from the 2023 Rath Yatra festival in Odisha, India. The claim that the video shows a rally of Sheikh Hasina is baseless and misleading.