A digitally altered video of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in which she is heard asking Prime Minister Narendra Modi to merge East and West Bengal into a single province called Bangla, is viral on social media as footage from her first media address on August 5, 2026.
BOOM found that the video has been digitally altered with an AI-generated voiceover, and AI detection tools confirmed it was synthetic.
Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made her first public media appearance in two years on August 5, 2026 from New Delhi. The virtual address was held at an event organised by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia. The viral clip is part of a wider pattern of AI-manipulated media targeting Indian politicians and Army officials. BOOM has previously fact-checked misinformation and deepfake videos shared by the "The Whistle Blower" (@InsiderWB) handle on X.
The Claim:
The 36-second video is being shared with the claim that Hasina called for combining East and West Bengal in line with Modi's goal of achieving Akhand Bharat.
Archive available here.
What We Found:
1) Sheikh Hasina's original address from August 5, 2026
A reverse image search led BOOM to the video from Republic's official X account. In the original video, Hasina talks about the role of law enforcement during periods of turmoil and the state's responsibility to protect life and property.
BOOM also reviewed footage of the event, which was live-streamed on the Foreign Correspondents' Club YouTube channel. Hasina does not make the remarks heard in the viral video at any point.
2) AI detection tool results
We ran the videos through Hiya's Deepfake voice detector and Deepfake O Meter; the results indicated that the viral clip is likely AI-generated.