Last updated on July 16th, 2026
Editor’s Note
In June 2026, India’s Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) held a series of public events that drew wide coverage, with outlets including Al Jazeera, CBS News, the Associated Press (AP), Agence France-Presse (AFP), and Reuters reporting on them. Amid this coverage, videos related to these events circulated on social media, with some recycled from unrelated events and others using AI-generated crowd scenes, which were shared as live footage. This fact-check examines two such videos, analyzing their sources and visual content to trace how these posts were produced and circulated.
Claim
1. On June 6, 2026, Facebook account @West Bengal Cockroach Janata Party circulated an overhead video of a street crowd overlaid with the text “CJP Protest,” claiming the footage showed the CJP protest in New Delhi. As of June 20, the video had received about 14,000 likes on Facebook.
2. On June 11, 2026, Instagram account @mohsin_sultan_official posted an aerial video of a vast crowd, claiming it showed the CJP protest held in Pune on June 11, 2026. As of review, the video had received about 64,000 likes on Instagram and had been reshared by multiple accounts.
Fact Check
1. “Overhead Street-Crowd Video Claimed as the New Delhi CJP Protest”
1) Source Analysis
A reverse image search of keyframes traced the footage to an Instagram post, dated January 24, 2026, which documented thousands of people braving the severe cold to protest ongoing ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) operations in Minnesota, USA. This event is unrelated to India or the CJP. The original post carries no reference to India, the CJP, or the New Delhi protest.
2) Geolocation verification
Using Google Street View to check the street layout and buildings shown in the footage, the scene matches Minneapolis, USA. This indicates that the video was recorded in the United States, rather than at the CJP protest in New Delhi.
3) Event Cross-Verification
The local outlet Minnesota Reformer, in a January 23, 2026 report on the anti-ICE protest, carried a same-angle photograph of the scene, providing a second and independent source. The building features in that photo match the circulated video. Taken together, this shows the video originally recorded an anti-ICE protest in Minnesota, USA, in January 2026; it was subsequently shared without its original date and location and recirculated as footage of the New Delhi CJP protest.
2. “AI-Generated Aerial Crowd Claimed as the Pune CJP Protest”
1) Visual Analysis
Frame-by-frame extraction using ffmpeg revealed five visual anomalies typical of AI-generated video:
(1) Duplicated individuals: at higher magnification the crowd contains no distinguishable individuals, appearing instead as near-identical blobs repeated in bulk;
(2) Inconsistent edges and shadows: the outlines of people and trees “melt” into one another, and the image lacks shadows falling in a single consistent direction;
(3) Bending of straight structures: the twin rail/road lines running through the crowd, which should be straight and evenly spaced, instead wobble, vary in gauge, and partly dissolve into the crowd;
(4) Garbled signage and broken textures: all banners and placards are white smears with no legible text when magnified;
(5) Incoherent motion: a pixel difference between two frames 0.1 seconds apart shows the entire crowd uniformly “boiling” / regenerating, rather than individuals moving in a consistent direction.
2) AI Detection Tool Results
Keyframes were submitted to two synthetic-media detection tools. Sightengine returned a GenAI probability of 99%; AI or Not returned “Likely AI” at 77%.
3) Event Cross-Verification
According to multiple on-site media reports(see here and here), the CJP protest held on the afternoon of June 11 at Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) drew about 300-400 students. The circulated video depicts an aerial “sea” of hundreds of thousands of people. The number of attendees reported by the media and the crowd size shown in the circulated video are inconsistent.
4) Account Analysis
Instagram account@mohsin_sultan_official (display name “Mohsin Sultan”) is a verified account with about 474,000 followers. Its bio describes the user as a “Digital creator” and lists a backup page, @mohsinsultan2.0. This designation suggests that the account’s content may involve digitally produced or edited material.
Background
In June 2026, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) held a series of public events in India, including one in New Delhi on June 6 and one at Savitribai Phule Pune University in Pune on June 11. The two videos examined in this fact-check were circulated online in connection with these events.
Verdict
Overhead street-crowd video (New Delhi claim): Out of Context.
Aerial crowd video (Pune claim): AI-Generated.
Conclusion
No evidence supports the claim that either video depicts the CJP protests, as asserted by social media users.
The overhead street-crowd video has been identified as footage of an anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from January 2026 — its street layout and buildings match Google Street View imagery of the area. The video was stripped of its original context and recirculated as footage of the New Delhi CJP protest — a case of cross-regional footage misappropriation.
The aerial “sea of people” video, purportedly showing the Pune protest, displays multiple visual anomalies — duplicated individuals, inconsistent edges and shadows, and bending of straight structures. Two AI-detection tools (Sightengine: 99% GenAI probability; AI or Not: 77% Likely AI) have also flagged it as highly likely to be AI-generated. On-site media reports indicate the actual CJP Pune protest drew about 300-400 students, a figure inconsistent with the “hundreds of thousands” depicted in the video.
When encountering such videos, readers are advised to conduct cross-verification, trace the original source, and remain vigilant against potentially AI-generated content.
Have a questionable video or claim? Submit it to Fact Hunter’s investigation team at therealfacthunter@outlook.com.
Primary Fact Checker: Xinyue Zhang
Secondary Fact Checker: Qinlan Qiu
