Was a Kid Beaten in a UP Madrasa? No, This Incident is From Bangladesh
The incident happened in Chittagong’s Hathazari in Bangladesh.
(Editor’s Note: The story was first published on 17 March 2021 and is being republished from The Quint’s archives in the light of the claim resurfacing after the incident at a school in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh where a teacher was seen asking students to beat up a Muslim classmate.)
A video from Bangladesh is being shared on the Indian social media to claim that a minor was mercilessly beaten in a madrasa in Uttar Pradesh. The video comes after a 14-year-old minor boy was assaulted for entering a temple in Ghaziabad to drink water.
CLAIM
The video was shared by Kreately Media, a blog which has been called out on multiple occasions for sharing disinformation. The video was shared with the caption, “Why UP Govt wants CCTVs in Madrassas (sic).”
Other users on Twitter shared the same video without mentioning the location but added that no action would be taken in this case. This video shared by a user called ‘Anokhi Satta News Delhi’ was viewed over 8,000 times at the time of writing this article.
WHAT’S THE TRUTH?
We fragmented the video into multiple keyframes and then conducted a reverse image search which led us to an article published on ‘SATV.TV’ which is a privately owned television channel in Bangladesh.
The article mentioned that the incident took place in Chittagong's Hathazari in Bangladesh. We then did a keyword search on Google and came across another article on Dhaka Tribune which too mentioned similar details.
This article, which was published on 10 March 2021, added that the boy was reportedly beaten up for running after his mother who had come to visit him on his birthday. The teacher, who was later identified as Yahya, was arrested after the child’s father filed a case against him.
While the incident happened and it is recent, it has nothing to do with Uttar Pradesh or India.
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