A screengrab of an alleged tweet, attributed to Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma, is doing rounds on social media. The purported tweet mentions that due to COVID-19, schools would remain shut and reopen in November instead of September.

“This is an important announcement that schools are not going to open from September. It is postponed to November as Covid cases in the state are not yet controlled,further details will be announced,” the tweet read.

Here’s the link to the above post. More such posts can be seen here and here.

FACT CHECK 

NewsMobile fact-checked the post and found it to be fake.

We ran a keyword search but did not find any credible media report corroborating the claim.

We noticed that in the viral screenshot the date is mentioned as August 26, 2021, and the time of tweet read 22:05 hrs (10:05 pm). We scanned through the Twitter handle of Himanta Biswa Sarma but did not find any such tweet.

We found that he tweeted at 08:01 pm, 10:08 pm and then at 10:48 pm on August 26, 2021. However, none of the tweets were about the reopening of schools.

We also found a post on the official verified Facebook page of Assam CM, where he refuted the viral claim.

“A fake announcement, purportedly issued from my Twitter account, about non opening of schools is being circulated on WhatsApp. This is a fake message and should not be given heed to. Assam Police please file an FIR. #FakeNews,” the post read.

The same was also tweeted by the official Twitter account of Himanta Biswa Sarma. In the reply to the same, Guwahati Police said that the matter has been reported to the Crime Branch.