Following Trinamool Congress’ landslide victory in the West Bengal assembly elections, a screengrab of a Republic TV news report has surfaced on social media platforms with the claim that the state’s Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee has shut down ‘125 RSS schools in the state’.
A Facebook user shared the image screengrab with a caption in Hindi that translates to, “Mamata Banerjee banned 125 RSS schools in Bengal! Are you listening Modi ji, this is called the sound of power!”
Several other users on Facebook and Twitter also shared the screengrab with the same narrative.
Similar posts can be found here, here, and here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked this claim and found the claim to be misleading.
On performing a relevant keyword search, we found a Republic TV news report, the screengrab of which is now viral, uploaded on the channel’s official YouTube channel on February 22, 2018. The title of the video was – ‘ Mamata Banerjee Bans RSS Schools In West Bengal’.
Here is a comparison of the viral screengrab and the original screengrab from the Republic TV report.
This proves that this screengrab is an old one from 2018.
A report by Hindustan Times dated February 20, 2018, quoted Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee as saying, “The state government has received information on about 493 schools that are inspired by RSS. Out of these, 125 are running without any no-objection certificate from the government. We have already asked these school authorities that will not be able to operate anymore. Investigation is on against the remaining schools.”
An excerpt from the report reads, “Outside the Assembly, the minister told journalists, “RSS or nor RSS, schools have to follow certain norms wielding sticks cannot be taught. We are looking into each case that is being brought to our notice.”
According to a Firstpost report with ANI inputs, West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said that the state government has identified and “stopped” 125 schools, allegedly affiliated to the RSS, which were functioning without a No Objection Certificate (NOC) and were not in accordance with the syllabus.
Moreover, we did not find any recent media reports claiming that such a decision has been taken by the Bengal government, after it came back into power in the state.
Therefore, a three-year-old news report from West Bengal, when the state decided to shut down 125 RSS-affiliated schools, has been revived as a recent decision following the recently-concluded assembly elections in the state.
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