While you took a dip in the Maha Kumbh, your photos went on sale on Telegram… a big fraud is happening

New Delhi: Imagine you are a woman. A woman who travelled by train and bus, walked several kilometres on foot and crossed a sea of ​​people to reach Prayagraj Maha Kumbh and take a holy dip. Now imagine that someone recorded this extremely spiritual (and unsafe) moment from several angles and shared clear videos or photos on social media. Sadly, this is not a fictional scene.

Fact Check found that photos and videos of women allegedly bathing and changing clothes at the Maha Kumbh were shared on social media and Telegram. Some of these photos were also used as teasers to sell other such photos and videos.

Social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Instagram are flooded with videos of women bathing and changing clothes on the river bank. Many of these videos are also such that they are taking people to Telegram to watch the alleged full video related to the bathing of women.

Some Facebook pages that are promoting pornographic content are continuously sharing videos of women bathing with captions like “Mahakumbh Ganga Snan Prayagraj”. Some are also using hashtags like #mahakumbh2025, #gangasnan and #prayagrajkumbh in their posts.

In one such video, a woman can be seen bathing. Some of the woman’s body parts are visible. The woman continues bathing, unaware of the fact that the video is being recorded. The person making the video deliberately zooms in and records it. This is just one example of the pornographic scenes posted on such accounts.

We specifically investigated some photos and videos shared with trending keywords related to Maha Kumbh. We found that these are not actually from Prayagraj and are old ones which are being shared claiming to be related to this big religious event.

Some people have even created a data bank of objectionable videos and photos of women bathing and changing clothes on the river bank.

Monetized private moments

We found two Telegram channels offering access to private groups where secretly recorded videos of women bathing and changing clothes are shared. These videos are being shared in groups with names such as “Ganga river open bathing group”, “Hidden bath videos group” and “Open bath videos group”.

According to Telemetrio, a Telegram search engine and analytics platform, there has been a significant increase in searches for “open bathing” between February 12 and 18 in India.

In many of these videos and photos, women can be seen changing clothes or covering themselves with towels. The fee for access to such channels ranges from Rs 1999 to Rs 3000.

While we were investigating, some of these Telegram channels had been deleted. Apart from videos and photos of women bathing, these Telegram channels also share CCTV footage in which doctors or nurses are seen examining or treating women’s private parts.