English, Fake News
 

An old video of a huge crowd travelling by train in Bangladesh is falsely shared as that of people heading to the 2025 Prayagraj Kumbh Mela

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A video going viral on social media (here, here, and here) shows a huge crowd travelling in a train, with some people hanging from the doors and others sitting on top of the train, along with visuals from the Maha Kumbh Mela. The post claims these people are heading to the 2025 Prayagraj Maha Kumbh. Let’s verify the claim made in the post through this article.

The archived post can be found here.

Claim: The video shows a huge crowd travelling to the 2025 Prayagraj Maha Kumbh by train.

Fact: The video does not show a huge crowd traveling by train to the 2025 Prayagraj Maha Kumbh. The video shows an overcrowded train from Bangladesh. Moreover, the viral video has been circulating online since June 2024, well before the Maha Kumbh which began on 13 January 2025. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.

A reverse image search of the keyframes from the viral video led us to an Instagram post (archived) dated 17 June 2024 featuring the same video. The post claims that the video is from Dhaka, Bangladesh, and shows people travelling in large numbers for the Eid festival. 

Taking this as a cue, we searched the internet using relevant Bangla keywords and found several reports (here, here, here, here, and here) about huge crowds travelling for the Eid festival in Bangladesh. However, we found no media reports covering this viral video.

Upon careful observation, we noticed two tall buildings. We were able to identify the location as Tongi – Kaliganj – Gorashal – Pachdona Rd, Tongi, Dhaka Division, Bangladesh with the help of this clue. The comparison is shown below.

To sum up, an old video of an overcrowded train from Bangladesh is falsely shared as that of people heading to the 2025 Prayagraj Kumbh Mela.

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