Subscribe to our WhatsApp channel
It is common to see photos and videos posted on social media being given misleading interpretations around trending events. A recent viral claiming to be scenes of Inter-University Student Federation members at Malwana house created lot of sparks among social media circles. However, our investigation found the viral clip to be old and unrelated to the current protest.
Social Media Posts:
A video claiming to be a clip from the protest being held by Antare (Inter-University Student Federation) at the infamous Malwana residence has been widely circulating on social media.
Here are few other instances of the video.
We conducted a search to find out whether this is actually an instance of that protest.
Fact-Check:
The Inter-University Student Federation has been protesting since the 14th May, demanding to hand over the ownerless house and 15 acres of prominent land in Malwana to the university and the general public for use.
We first conducted a Reverse Image Search to find more details. Accordingly, we were able to find the original Facebook account of the young girl featured in the video, named Dinu Liyanage. She posted the video last Friday (15), on her Facebook profile, tagging University of Colombo as the place where the scenes were filmed.
However, as her clip soon went viral, linking to the recent protest by IUSF at the infamous Malwana residence, Dinu had posted a video explaining that she had published the video as a memory of funny incident which took place two years ago in 2024, while she was setting up the backdrop for a stage with her team members. She mentions that the video was filmed behind Hall 13 of the Sripali Campus of the University of Colombo in Horana.
Here is another post she posted explaining this. Here is a social media post posted by the same theater group.
The girl in the video, Dinu Liyanage
We also contacted the young woman in the above video by phone, and she said that this video was a video that she had taken for fun while preparing the backdrop for a stage play for her final project while studying at Sripali Mandapam in 2024.
She added that it had not been posted anywhere before, and that she had recently posted the video on her account as a keepsake. Upon our request, in order to verify the time period in which this video was taken, we checked the information related to the time of the above video on the mobile phone from which the video was taken and the dates when the photos/videos were uploaded to Google Drive, and found that the videos/photos were taken in 2024 and not recently.
Convener of the Inter-University Student Federation
For further clarification, we inquired from the convener of the Inter-Students’ Union, Sasindu Perera, who is currently staying at the Malwana house, and he stated that the video circulating on social media has no connection to the protest at the Malwana house. Also, to confirm this, a video showing the back and surroundings of the Malwana house was sent to us at our request, as seen below.
<iframe frameBorder=’0′ width=’640′ height=’360′ webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen src=”https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/embed?id=52658975&shareKey=375cf81b8d1647d17cfa5bf220cf3fe4″></iframe>
Students of Sripali Campus
Since the viral video was said to have been taken behind Hall 13 of the Sripalee Campus, we obtained a current video from the students of the university and upon observing the video, it was confirmed that the background of the scene recorded in the above video and the background shown behind Hall 13 of the current Sripalee Campus are the same.
Accordingly, it is further confirmed that the above video does not represent scenes from the ongoing protest by inter-university students at the Malwana residence, rather a video taken at the Sripalee Campus of the University of Colombo in Horana.
Malwana protest
The Inter-University Student Federation is engaged in a protest, requesting that the relevant property be allocated to universities with limited space and for public use.
This house was built on an area of about 15 acres and was taken over by the Ministry of Justice due to the absence of an owner. Mr. Basil Rajapaksa had informed the court through his lawyers that he has no connection with this house.
The court ordered the auction of the house and land in question. During the Aragalaya, some people had set fire to this house, and the fire damaged part of the house.
Although there were plans to later establish an International Referee Research and Training Center at this facility, it did not operate for a long time.
On this backdrop the Inter-University Students’ Federation has made this request to provide this ownerless house to them. Media reports published in this regard are here, here and here.
We invite you to explore our fact-finding efforts.
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Google News | TikTok | YouTube
Conclusion:
Our investigation shows that the above video circulating these days on social media, purporting to be an incident of the protest by the Inter-University Federation at the infamous Malwana House, actually video taken in 2024 behind the theater hall of the Sripalee Campus of the University of Colombo in Horana.
Title: Video of IUSF students protesting at the Malwana house? Find out the truth…
Written By: Pavithra Sandamali
Result: False
