Old Clip of ISKCON Devotees Distributing Food Linked To Recent Bangladesh Floods

The video dates back to June 2022 and shows ISKCON Sylhet devotees distributing food packets to people.

The video predates the 2024 floods and political turmoil in Bangladesh.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A video showing a small group of people on a boat handing out food packets to several people has gone viral on social media.

The claim: Those sharing the video have claimed that it shows recent visuals from Bangladesh, where International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) devotees handed out food to people from the Muslim community amid devastating floods, despite the recent violence in the country.

• X user @MrSinha_ also shared this video with a similar claim.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)

(Archived versions of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here, here, and here.)

But...?: While the video does, in fact, show devotees associated with ISKCON Sylhet handing out food packets, the video is two years old.

How did we find out the truth?: We ran a keyword search in Bangla using the term 'মন্দিরে খাদ্য বিতরণ বন্যা' (temple food distribution in floods) across social media platforms.

• On Facebook, the search led us to a post shared on 20 June 2022 by a user named 'Soul Boy'. The post shared several photographs, one of which resembled the people in the viral video.

We noticed that both visuals showed the same people involved in relief work.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

We noticed that both visuals showed the same people involved in relief work.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

Its caption in Bangla loosely translates to "ISKCON Sylhet again next to the helpless. Second-day activities. More than 1000 food distributions. As long as there will be floods in Sylhet, ISKCON will give food until then."

• Taking a cue from this, we used the term 'ISKCON Sylhet food distribution' to look for more visuals on Facebook.

• This led us to a page called 'ISKCON Youth Forum - Sylhet', which had shared several videos showing relief work during floods.

• One of their posts shared the video seen in the claim, on 20 June 2022, with text encouraging people to join them is providing aid to hungry people.

Conclusion: A video from June 2022 has gone viral on social media, where users have falsely linked it to the recent turmoil and flooding in Bangladesh.

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