A video of Indian-origin former NASA astronaut Sunita Williams is circulating online with the false claim that it shows her participating in the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP)-led protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar against the central government.
BOOM found that the video is from the Kerala Literature Festival, held in January 2026, where Sunita Williams participated during her visit to India.
Several Bollywood personalities and public figures came out in support of the CJP-led protest in Delhi and expressed concern for activist Sonam Wangchuk. Wangchuk launched an indefinite hunger strike on June 28 over the alleged NEET paper leak and was shifted to a hospital by the Delhi Police on July 18. The CJP has called for a march to Parliament on July 20.
The Claim
The video is being shared with the caption, "ma'm sunita william at jantar mantar. Our real hero , our pride".
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
What We Found: Video Is From Kerala Literature Festival Held in January 2026
1. Video Is Old, Not from CJP Protest: We first broke the video into keyframes and performed a reverse image search on Google. We found the same video uploaded on a YouTube channel on January 23, 2026, much before the CJP protest began.
Furthermore, we noticed that Williams appeared to be wearing an identity card with "KLF" written on it. Taking this as a cue, we searched for "Sunita Williams KLF" and found several news reports about Williams attending the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF) in January 2026.
2. Williams Inaugurated the Kerala Literature Festival: The Hindu in its report stated that astronaut Sunita Williams inaugurated the ninth edition of the literary event on Kozhikode Beach on January 22, 2026. Over the course of the four-day Kerala Literature Festival, Williams addressed several sessions and spoke about her experiences. In a video from the event, she can be seen wearing the same attire as in the viral video.
