Claim: A video claims to show a large crowd at the recent protests in India by the Cockroach Janta Party.
Fact: The claim is false. The video actually shows the Jagannath Puri Rath Yatra festival in Odisha, India.
On 23 July 2026, X user Saif Awan posted a video with the Urdu caption:
جنتر منتر کی موجودہ صورتحال،لگتا ہے جنتر منتر مودی کا دھڑن تختہ کردے گا۔
[Translation: “Regarding the current situation of Jantar Mantar, it seems that Jantar Mantar will topple Modi’s government.”]
Screenshot from X post
Student protests in India
On 9 July, founder of the initially satirical, youth-led group Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), Abhijeet Dipke, announced a march to the parliament in New Delhi, India on 20 July. His announcement came after India’s biggest exam the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for medical colleges, which was taken by nearly 2 million students on 3 May, was cancelled after it was leaked. Students had to retake the test on 21 June amid tight security.
However, the announcement of the first test’s cancellation caused significant distress to several students. Publications like Indian Express and Reuters reported 12 students died by suicide whereas BBC quoted an “alleged number” of 20.
CJP staged its first protest at Jantar Mantar on 6 June, demanding the resignation of Indian education minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Hundreds of students have been camping out at the site for the past month. However, their movement gained attention after Indian activist and education reformer Sonam Wangchuk went on a hunger strike on 28 June, demanding Pradhan’s resignation.
After 20 days of his strike, Wangchuk was forcibly taken to the hospital on 18 July. His wife, Gitanjali J Angmo later took to her X account and wrote: “I am at Safdarjung hospital in Delhi where @Wangchuk66 has been admitted. Nothing should be administered to him orally or intravenously without take consent from me, his family and his doctors who have been monitoring his health for the past 20 days.”
Sonam Wangchuk’s wife Gitanjali J Angmo posts a statement on X on 18 July 2026
On 20 July, thousands of students marched towards the parliament where they clashed with the police who tried to stop them from breaching the security of the areas. Videos posted on CJP’s Instagram account show people running through tear gas and officers using batons on the demonstrators.
Al Jazeera quoted Delhi police as saying that 60 protesters along with 118 security and police personnel were injured in the clashes. They also said 70 people have been detained and “legal action” will be taken against them.
On 23 July, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke his silence on the protests by posting on X. In his statement, he ensured “stringent punishment” for those involved in paper leaks.
Indian PM Narendra Modi’s X post on 23 July 2026
Later, on the same day, he posted a video message on his X feed saying that his officials have prepared a draft detailing “provisions for fast-track courts and stringent punishment”. He assured that it will be discussed in the Cabinet on 24 July, and a bill will be introduced and passed as soon as possible.
On the other hand, Wangchuk also ended his hunger strike after 26 days on the night of 23 July. In a video message from the hospital, the activist stated that he has been assured that the issue of paper leaks will be discussed in the parliament, families of the students who died by suicide will be given adequate compensation, and people who took part in the New Delhi protests won’t be detained.
However, in a recent X post on 24 July, Dipke stated that their “peaceful protest” at Jantar Mantar will continue until Pradhan resigns. Dipke founded CJP in May this year in response to India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant’s comments that likened young people to “cockroaches” who don’t get any employment.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke’s X post on 24 July 2026
On 25 July, Pradhan resigned and shared his statement in Hindi on social media. “Considering the situation that has arisen at Jantar Mantar and across the country, so that anti-national forces do not take advantage of this situation … I have sent my resignation letter to the prime minister,” an excerpt from his statement read.
Videos on CJP’s social media showed hundreds of protesters on Jantar Mantar celebrating their victory. Later, on the same day, CJP announced they are withdrawing nationwide protests as all of their demands have been accepted by the government.
CJP lists its demands that have been accepted by the government on 25 July 2026.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-image searched the keyframes of the video between 0:24-0:25 seconds of the clip, where a temple can be seen.The temple is important, as it is the only identifiable building that can be fact-checked, and it is not located at the Jantar Mantar observatory in New Delhi.
The top results of this reverse search led to social media accounts posting about the Jagannath Puri Rath Yatra festival. Wee identified the temple as the “Shree Jagannath Temple” . These videos of the temple help debunk this claim, but for further verification news outlets dated 24 July 2026, help explain how the festival starts at Puri, a city in Odisha and ends at the Jagannath Temple.
To confirm that the video is not from New Delhi, Soch Fact Check compared visuals from the clip to an image published by the Indian news outlet The Economic Times.. The caption of the image identifies the location as the “Jagannath Temple” in Odisha, India and adds that the image shows worshippers performing a ritual on the eve of the Jagannath Yatra festival in July 2026.
Both images show the same temple and resembling structures, as seen below, suggesting that the video shows the Jagannath Temple in Odisha, not Jantar Mantar, the site of the CJP protest in New Delhi.
The image on the right is from the video in the claim. Image on the left was published in an article on the Jagannath Rath Yatra festival by The Economic Times, dated 16 July 2026.
Soch Fact Check used Google Street View to confirm the location of the temple, specifically the two white domes along with the tall brown structure in the background of the viral video. While it is difficult to locate this specific image due to the crowd in front of the temple, and because the clip is recorded from a different angle, it is clear that the Google Street View visuals show the same building. The map locates the temple in Puri, a city in Odisha, which is also where the Jagannath Rath Yatra festival takes place.
Google Street View images of the temple’s location and the three domes as seen in the viral video.
The evidence from Google Street View and official images from Indian outlets conclude that the video shows Jagannath Rath Yatra festival being in Puri, Odisha.
Virality
The interaction on X hit 258.9K views.
The clip saw 25K views and 3.8K likes on Facebook while another clip received 13K views and 271 likes.
Conclusion: The video shows a religious Hindu festival known as the Jagannath Rath Yatra, not the CJP protests in New Delhi. The video shared in the claim is likely from the annual procession held in Odisha, India
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