This video of a large elephant herd crossing a road in Assam is falsely shared as visuals from Sakleshpur, Karnataka

A video (here, here, here, here and here) is going viral on social media showing a large herd of elephants crossing a road while people watch. It is being claimed that the incident took place in Sakleshpur town, Hassan district, Karnataka. Let’s find out the truth behind this video.

The archived post can be found here.

Claim: The viral video shows a large herd of elephants entering Sakleshpur town in Hassan district, Karnataka.

Fact: The video is not from Sakleshpur. Geolocation and news reports confirm it is from Assam, near National Highway 39 and the Marangi Circle Office. There are no recent reports of a large elephant herd entering Sakleshpur town, and the viral video has no connection to Karnataka. Hence, the claim is FALSE.

To verify the origin of the clip, we performed a reverse image search on Google. This search led us to the same video featured in a News18 Assamese & North East report. The report discusses an elephant attack in Numaligarh, located in Assam’s Golaghat district, an area surrounded by dense forests. One of the clips in that report matches the viral video.

On further verification, we found multiple extended versions of the viral clip on YouTube (here and here). These videos show the same incident from different angles. One is titled “A Large Herd of Wild Elephants Crossing National Highway 39 Near Marangi Circle Office, Assam,” which helps pinpoint the exact location.

Upon geolocating the area identified in the YouTube video, National Highway 39 near the Marangi Circle Office, we found that the shops and structures visible in the viral video match the location perfectly. A side-by-side comparison clearly confirms that the viral video is from Assam, not Karnataka.

Additionally, we checked for recent elephant-related incidents in Sakleshpur, Hassan district. While elephants do wander into forested and coffee-estate regions around Sakleshpur (here and here), there are no reports of any recent instance of a large herd entering the town. No credible evidence connects the viral clip to Sakleshpur.

To sum up, the video of a large elephant herd crossing a road in Assam is falsely shared as footage from Sakleshpur, Karnataka.