Old video of crowds at Indo-Bangladesh border shared as recent

As a result of the unrest in Bangladesh, social media has been abuzz with various posts and updates. Several images and videos are also going viral, among which one caught our attention. The video in question shows hordes of people at the Indo-Bangladesh border and is being shared with claims that imply that these visuals are recent and show chaos at the border. 

Here is one such post on X:

View of India-Bangladesh border in Assam👇

According to the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, identify and grant citizenship and entry to people of Hindu, Parsi, Sikh and Jain communities but keep in mind that no Jihadi should enter even by mistake!#SaveBangladeshiHindus pic.twitter.com/Uidt2JyBjv

— #𝐒𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐇𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬 (@cracymobo) August 7, 2024

Archived Link

Here is another such post. Archived Link

However, Fact Crescendo found that the video is from 2018 and has no connection with the current unrest. These are visuals of the annual Milan Mela at the Indo-Bangladesh border and not of refugees trying to cross over

Fact Check Methodology

We began our investigation by splitting the video into keyframes and running a reverse image search which led us to two YouTube shorts uploaded in the year 2018. The YouTube shorts we came across have captions stating that the video is from April 15, 2018, and shows visuals from the annual Milan Mela. Milan Mela is held every year on Chaitra Sankranti when people from both India and Bangladesh gather on both sides of the border to exchange gifts. Chaitra Sankranti marks the last day of the last month of Basanta (spring season) in the Bangla calendar- the last day of the year. 

You can watch the shorts here and here.

The description on one of the shorts by user @gmgptv999 shows that it was uploaded on June 5, 2018.

Archived Link

We reached out to authorities who informed us that Assam Police has posted about the video which has no connection with the current unrest in Bangladesh on their official social media handles. Here’s a post from Assam Police’s official X (formerly Twitter) handle:

Beware of misinformation!

An old video from April 2018 is being falsely circulated as recent visuals from the India-Bangladesh border in Assam.

Action will be taken against those trying to create panic with malafide intentions.@himantabiswa @gpsinghips @HardiSpeaks pic.twitter.com/TyIt0Bx1Qh

— Assam Police (@assampolice) August 8, 2024

Conclusion

The evidence makes it clear that the video being shared with a caption implying that these are recent visuals from the Indo-Bangladesh Border is in fact from the Milan Mela in 2018. The 6 year old video has no connection whatsoever with the current unrest in Bangladesh. We can conclude that the video is being shared with Missing Context and may mislead social media users into believing that these visuals are recent.