‘Bangal khali ho raha hai’: Old video from Muslim religious gathering shared as Bangladeshis leaving amid SIR

A video captured from a slowly moving train, showing a crowd of men gathered along the railway tracks, many of whom are wearing skullcaps and traditional Muslim attire, is going viral on social media. The clip is shared with claims that it shows the mass exodus of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants from West Bengal amidst the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.  

An Instagram account, Balwant Singh Parmar (@kattar.bsparmar), shared the purported video as a reel on November 23, 2025. The reel was accompanied by a caption “Hail for SIR”, and the footage had an on-screen text reading “Bangal khali ho raha hai”, which can be roughly translated in English as “Bengal is emptying”. (Archive)

 

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A post shared by बलवंत सिंह परमार (@kattar.bsparmar)

The reel has garnered around 3.3 million views and over 95,200 likes. It is noteworthy that the Instagram user’s bio says, “राष्ट्रीय स्वयं सेवक 🚩यदि हम धर्म की रक्षा करेंगे, तो धर्म हमारी रक्षा करेगा….”

An X user, Trisha Pandey (@itrishapandey), shared the same video with a caption hailing the SIR drive, suggesting that it shows “infiltrators” who are being driven out of Bengal. (Archive)

Bengal is being emptied, infiltrators are being driven out, Jai Ho SIR✨🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/dPVmhs9mBF

— Trisha Pandey (@itrishapandey) November 25, 2025

The bio of this X user says, “Proud Hindu 📿 Die hard nationalist”.

Another Instagram user, Dharamveer Pandey (sanatani_dharamveer), with 107,000 followers, shared the same video with the hashtag SIR. (Archive)

 

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A post shared by DHARAMVEER PANDEY (@sanatani_dharamveer)

Several other social media users have also shared the video with similar claims. A few of them can be seen in the gallery below:

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Fact Check

A reverse image search on a few keyframes led us to the Facebook profile of Animesh Halder, who had originally uploaded the video clip on December 23, 2024. In the accompanied caption, “Today, the Diamond Harbour local train is moving through the crowd of ‘Ijtema’ in Magrahat, South 24 Parganas.”

Magrahat is a a town and community development block in Diamond Harbour subdivision of South 24 Parganas district in West Bengal.

The word Ijtema, derived from Arabic, literally means public gathering or congregation, and in the Islamic context, it refers to large-scale gatherings aimed at providing religious education and facilitating discussion on Islamic principles. 

In Magrahat, an annual Ijtema has become a significant event. Last year, it was held from December 20 to December 23, drawing lakhs of people from various places to gather together for prayers and religious learning. The event is well documented through YouTube vlogs and Facebook videos. These videos capture the scale of the gathering.

The Election Commission of India issued the SIR order for West Bengal on October 27, 2025. This alone confirms that the viral footage cannot be linked with any purported mass exodus of Bangladeshi “illegal immigrants” following the SIR announcement.

To sum up, the video does not show the mass exodus of Bangladeshi “illegal” immigrants from West Bengal post SIR announcement. The footage is from December 23, 2024, showing a crowd gathered for Ijtema in Magrahat, South 24 Parganas.