A video going viral on social media shows former NASA astronaut Sunita Williams walking through a crowd, guided by police personnel. Users claim the visuals show her arriving at Jantar Mantar to express solidarity with Sonam Wangchuk, who has been on a hunger strike for 22 days, demanding Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation.
An X user named @Coacroach_party posted the video on X and received over 300,000 views. (Archive)
ma’m sunita william at jantar mantar
Our real hero , our pride
जय सविंधान
जय भीम #sonamwangchukedutionminister #SonamWangchuk pic.twitter.com/1nPeVNQLl3— Cockroach Janta Party (@Coacroach_party) July 19, 2026
The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which began as a satirical online movement but quickly evolved into a nationwide youth protest, is demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and sweeping reforms to India’s examination system. The group seeks accountability for the 2026 NEET-UG paper leak and other alleged examination irregularities, which they say drove several students to suicide. The movement gathered significant momentum after education reformer Sonam Wangchuk joined it with an indefinite hunger strike on June 28, drawing support from several celebrities and public figures.
Several others shared the viral video on social media platforms with the same claim.
Click to view slideshow.Fact Check
To begin with, we performed a keyword search on Google to check if there were any media reports on Sunita Williams’ visit to Jantar Mantar. We did not find any.
Then, we broke the viral video into its keyframes and ran a reverse image search using those. This led us to an Instagram video from January 23, 2026 posted collaboratively by users yoxidon_entertainments and anees_pzid. This is the same video that has now gone viral.
The caption of the Instagram post has hashtags like “#Calicut” and “#klf”. This indicates the video is from the Kerala Literature Festival. It is worth noting that in the video, several individuals, including Willaims, can be seen with KLF-marked lanyards.
We then performed a keyword search and found that Sunita Williams had visited Kerala to attend the 9th Kerala Literature Festival (KLF) held in Kozhikode (Calicut). She inaugarated the four-day event on January 22.
This was widely reported by media outlets.
We found videos and photos of Willaims’ participation in the festival in January 2026 on the official Instagram handle of KLF.
View this post on Instagram
It is also worth noting that shoulder straps marked ‘K P’ and shoulder patches bearing the logo of Kerala Police can be seen on the uniform of the cops escorting the astronaut in the video.
To sum up, a video from January 2026 showing astronaut Sunita Williams at the Kerala Literature Festival is being falsely shared as footage from her visit to Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. As of July 19, Williams has not visited the CJP protest in the national capital.
This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Alt News Staff.
Alt News Staff | Radio Free (2026-07-19T18:21:13+00:00) No, Sunita Williams did not visit CJP protest site at Jantar Mantar. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2026/07/19/no-sunita-williams-did-not-visit-cjp-protest-site-at-jantar-mantar/
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