Authors
A day after the UPTET (Uttar Pradesh Teacher’s Eligibility Test) was cancelled due to a question paper leak, a photo allegedly showing test aspirants sleeping under the open sky is being shared widely on social media.
Newschecker found the image does not show UPTET aspirants, but instead show, protests by unemployed youth from Rajasthan against the Congress party in Lucknow.
Expressing disappointment at CM Yogi Adityanath’s government, netizens shared the image on Twitter with claims such as, “I hail from that state where examinees spend whole winter nights beneath open sky & in the morning they get the news of paper leak and reschedule.”
The question paper was reportedly circulated on WhatsApp a day before the examination and 23 people have been arrested in the probe.
Newschecker found similar claims in Hindi shared both on Twitter and Facebook.
Factcheck/Verification
To check if the photo showed UPTET aspirants, Newschecker searched for the hashtag ‘UPTET’ used along with the claim and found a Tweet by the official account of the UP police fact-check.
The Tweet written in Hindi reads, “a man has been arrested for posting misleading tweets in connection with the UPTET exam.”
In another Tweet, UP police have stated, ‘‘The viral photo is not of the UPTET candidates but of the youth of Rajasthan…’’
Using this as a clue, we ran a keyword search for ‘Rajasthan’s youth protest’ and found an article by Indian Express titled, ‘Unemployed youth from Rajasthan protest outside Congress office in Lucknow, demand meeting with Priyanka Gandhi.’
The article, dated November 29, states the protest organized by Rajasthan Berozgar Ekikrut Mahasangh (RBEM) aims to pressurize the ‘Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government in Rajasthan to accept long-standing demands made by the unemployed in Rajasthan.’
Newschecker contacted the RBEM president Upen Yadav and found the viral image is from their protest site.
“This (viral) photo is from our protest. We had gathered at the Congress office in Lucknow but the police asked us to move to Eco Garden, this photo was captured there on November 27,” confirmed Yadav to Newschecker.
Yadav uploaded a live video showing the protestors asleep on his Facebook page on November 27. The viral image looks similar when compared to the frames from the video.
Conclusion
The image claiming to show UPTET aspirants is actually from a protest by Rajasthan’s youth against unemployment.
Result: False
Our sources
Contact from Rajasthan Berozgar Ekikrut Mahasangh (RBEM)
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