Recently, a video has been circulated on various platforms on the internet with the caption, ‘In India, Muslim girls in schools are being given injections to make them sterile under the guise of a blood cancer vaccine.’ The circulated video shows several female students in school uniforms coughing and gasping inside a room.
See posts circulated on Facebook with this claim here (Archive), here (Archive), and here (Archive).
See a post circulated on Instagram here (Archive).
Fact-check
An investigation by the Rumor Scanner team found that the circulated video is not of an incident where Muslim girls in schools in India were given sterilization injections under the guise of a blood cancer vaccine. In reality, a video from 2024 showing students injured by police tear gas in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, has been circulated with this claim.
An investigation into this matter led to a video titled ‘Police fired tear gas at girls’ schools in Dadyal’ published on a YouTube channel named Baaghi on May 9, 2024. This video bears a resemblance to the video circulated with the claim.
The title of the said video mentions that police fired tear gas at a girls’ school in Dadyal. This video shows the scene afterward.
Following this lead, a similar video was found, published on the X account of Basharat Raja, a journalist for the Pakistani media outlet ABN News, on May 9, 2024.
The caption of the said post states that it is also a video clip from Dadyal, where police and unidentified individuals in plain clothes used tear gas indiscriminately in schools, causing female students who were busy with their annual exams to lose consciousness.
A report published on the website of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn on May 10, 2024, titled ‘Police crackdown in AJK prompts ‘shutter-down strike’ call’, states that clashes erupted after traders protested at Maqbool Butt Shaheed Chowk against the overnight detention of more than a dozen activists in Dadyal tehsil, Mirpur. Tear gas shells fired by the police also landed in a school, causing the condition of several female students to deteriorate.
Therefore, the incident in the video in question did not occur in India.
Thus, an old video showing female students injured by police tear gas in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, has been circulated with the claim that it shows Muslim girls in India being given sterilization injections; which is false.
Sources
- Baaghi – Police fired tear gas at girls’ schools in Dadyal
- Basharat Raja – X Post
- Dawn – Police crackdown in AJK prompts ‘shutter-down strike’ call
