Authors
Preeksha is a journalism graduate interested in exploring and working on the phenomenon of fake news globally. She desires to work on compelling stories that employ digital journalism to bring forth narratives that matter. She is also a budding researcher, studying the COVID-19 infodemic as a research fellow with the Institute of Economic Growth.
A video, claiming to show a ‘Delhi government school transformed into a Madrassa by Kerjriwal’ has gone viral on Twitter and Facebook. A fact check by Newschecker has found the claim to be false.
The video has been posted by many users on Facebook. The post by the page @DrRP.KhatriMBBSMD has received more than one lakh views (1,12,000 views).
The same video has been posted by another user @Nitinbhargav007 o which has been reshared 2500 times.
The longest duration of the video available online spans 3 minutes & 46 seconds. While some users posted the longer version, others posted just a brief portion of the video. The caption accompanying the majority of the videos on Facebook and Twitter reads “दिल्ली के सरकारी स्कूलों को केजरीवाल ने मदरसे में बदलना शुरू कर दिया है दिल्ली के विजय नगर का एक सरकारी स्कूल” (Kejriwal has started converting Delhi’s government school’s into Madrassas, Vijay Nagar government school)
Factcheck/Verification
In order to confirm if the video was from Delhi, Newschecker conducted a reverse image search of the key frame of the video along with some key words in Hindi, through google reverse image search.
On further searching google with relevant keywords we came across the same video uploaded by a YouTube channel named Republic Hindustan News. The video uploaded by this channel however referred to the location of the school as Vijay Nagar, Ghaziabad. Loosely translated from hindi the video voice over claims “In Ghaziabad’s Vijaya Nagar Pratap Vihar region police arrested some Maulvis and Muslims. They were found to be teaching children how to read Kalma in Urdu to propagate the teachings of Islam in the country.”
On further research with keywords obtained so far, we came across a video uploaded by Ashutosh Gupta BJP Ghaziabad Vidhansabha 56. This video clearly mentions the location of the school as Vijay Nagar Ghaziabad.
We visited the YouTube channel of the person and found out that Dr.Ashutosh Gupta was the same man who could be seen in the video in question, recording the incident on his phone and could be heard insiting for a ‘Facebook Live’.
Newschecker reached out to Dr.Ashutosh Gupta who confirmed that the location of the school was indeed Vijay Nagar, Ghaziabad.
On carefully viewing the video, we found that at 1:11 seconds in the video (Video can be found here) the words “Prathmik Vidyalaya Mirzapur” can be seen written. This confirms our previous findings on the schools location.
We Googled the phrase and found out that there is a Prathmik Vidyalaya Mirzapur located in Vijay Nagar, Ghaziabad, Thus ruling out the claim of the video being from a school in Delhi’s VijayaNagar as claimed by some social media users.
Post ascertaining the location of the video, Newschecker spoke to Yogendra Malik at the police station in Vijay Nagar, Ghaziabad. He confirmed that the video in question was from 19 November, 2021 and that they acted after they had been informed about some Muslim’s allegedly praying namaaz forcefully in the school premises.
“On reaching the premises we found out that one Riyazuddin was living in the school with the permission of the School Management Committee. People seen in the school were found to be Riyazuddin’s relatives, some children and a Maulvi,” police authorities from the Vijya Nagar police station said.
READ: स्कूल पर रोहिंग्याओं का कब्जा होने का दावा करता यह वायरल वीडियो दिल्ली का नहीं है
Newschecker was further informed by the police that Riyazuddin lives on the school premises along with his children and wife. His wife had prayed for their children’s health and subsequently organised a religious event called ‘Quran Khawani’. Since 19 November 2021 was a holiday on account of Guru Nanak Jayanti, the day was chosen by them to conduct the ritual.
This refutes the claim made by the video of alleged religious teachings happening on the school premises.
The video also makes allegations that non- vegetarian food was being cooked on the premises of the school. The police informed Newschecker that the food being cooked was sampled and found to be dal and rice, and no non-vegetarian food was found on inspection.
Conclusion
The allegations made by the video of conversion of government schools into Madrassas by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal are false. The location of the video is Vijay Nagar, Ghaziabad. Further, the claims made by the video of religious teachings happening on the premises of the school are also false.
Result: Misleading
Sources
Delhi Police sources
Ashutosh Gupta, BJP Ghaziabad Vidhansabha
Visual Queues
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Authors
Preeksha is a journalism graduate interested in exploring and working on the phenomenon of fake news globally. She desires to work on compelling stories that employ digital journalism to bring forth narratives that matter. She is also a budding researcher, studying the COVID-19 infodemic as a research fellow with the Institute of Economic Growth.
