Video shared claiming Saima Wazed Putul arrived in Kolkata by helicopter is actually footage of Indian President’s Landing
A video has circulated on social media claiming that Saima Wazed Putul, daughter of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina, arrived in Kolkata by helicopter to attend a meeting with senior leaders of the Awami League. But a fact-check by Dismislab found that the footage actually shows the helicopter carrying Indian President Droupadi Murmu.
The video, posted from a profile named “Joy Bangla Joy Bangabandhu,” carried a caption that read: “Saima Wazed Putul is arriving in Kolkata on a special helicopter to attend an important meeting with senior Awami League leaders. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Sajeeb Wazed Joy will be virtually present.” The caption ended with: “Details will be known at 10:00 p.m.”
In the video, a woman wearing a red saree is seen getting into a white car, and she has been marked with a red circle. As of writing this report, the post has been shared more than 150 times and received over 600 reactions. The same video has also been posted by multiple other Facebook profiles and pages with the same claim (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
To verify the video’s authenticity, several key frames were extracted and reverse-searched. This led to a three-hour and six-minute live video on the YouTube channel of the Indian news agency ANI. Multiple scenes in that broadcast matched exactly with the scenes in the nine-second video circulated with the claim that Putul was traveling to Kolkata. In particular, the scene at 39 minutes and 34 seconds in ANI’s live video matches precisely with a three-second segment from the video posted by the “Joy Bangla Joy Bangabandhu” Facebook profile.
Further verification revealed the actual context of the footage. A relevant keyword search led to reports by Indian media outlets The Hindu, Times of India, and NDTV. According to The Hindu, the helicopter carrying President Droupadi Murmu landed on Wednesday (October 22) morning at a place called Pramadam near Pathanamthitta in the Indian state of Kerala. Around 9:05 a.m., the helicopter’s tires slightly sank into the concrete of a newly constructed helipad. The helicopter landed safely, and the President was en route to the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple.
The Hindu further reported: “Government sources said the construction of the helipad at Pramadam Indoor Stadium was completed just hours before the President’s flight arrived. The helicopter was originally scheduled to land at Nilakkal, but due to adverse weather conditions in the area, the plan was changed at the last moment. Police and fire service personnel later pushed the helicopter out of the soft ground.”
Therefore, the video does not show Saima Wazed Putul flying to Kolkata to attend a meeting with Awami League leaders– it shows the helicopter carrying Indian President Droupadi Murmu.
Disclaimer: The original version of this fact-check report was published in Bengali on Dismislab’s Bengali website on October 23, 2025. The English translation was completed later; however, to maintain time accuracy and avoid any potential misinterpretation, the English version has been published with the original publication date.
