Did Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa bow down and worship Ratta?
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Fact Check
The root cause behind this video was a meeting held on July 18, 2022, between Sajith Premadasa and the representatives of the 'Aragalaya' at the opposition leader's office in Colombo. During that meeting, the opposition leader made a special statement that neither he nor his party alliance has ever betrayed the demands of the people of the 'Aragalaya' and that it will not happen in the future.
It appears that Rathindu Senarathne or Ratta, featured in the shared video, also participated in this meeting. However, we had to contact the opposition leader's then-media secretary, Sajith Premadasa, to get the details of the scenes posted on social media.
Media Secretary of the opposition leader, Sajith Premadasa.
Mr Ranjith Kumara, then media secretary of the Sajith Premadasa, stated that several monks also participated in the meeting to meet the activists of the 'Aragalaya', and a series of video footage taken after the meeting had been edited inappropriately to spread a blatant lie against the opposition leader.
We were also given the original video clip at the occasion, which showcased a Buddhist monk beside Ratta and Sajith Premadasa bowing down and worshipping the Buddhist monk.
When examining the video given by the opposition leader's media secretary, we found that the clip was cropped, leaving out the background part where the Buddhist monk was captured while being played on a particular screen and recording only a part to make the video misleading. Below is a comparison of footage taken from the angle of the original video and the misleading recreated video.
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