Amidst multiple reports of post poll violence in West Bengal, a social media post with the screenshot of a Republic TV report which reads Mamata Banerjee shuts down 125 RSS affiliated schools is being shared across social media platforms. Let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: After the recent election victory, Mamata Banerjee issued orders to shut down 125 RSS-affiliated schools in West Bengal.
Fact: This is three years old news. West Bengal government back in 2018 decided to ban 125 RSS-affiliated schools that do not have a no-objection certificate. Multiple news agencies reported the news back then. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
As it is evident from the image in the post that the news is from Republic TV, YouTube search with relevant keywords yielded the original news report on Republic TV’s official YouTube channel which was published back in 2018. In this report, we can hear Partha Chatterjee, West Bengal state education minister saying that the government has identified 125 schools affiliated to RSS operating without a no-objection certificate and the government has decided to act on these schools.
Further Google search yielded multiple 2018 news articles which have reported this particular news. One such news article by Scroll quoted the State Education Minister Partha Chatterjee saying “We gathered inputs and found that over 125 schools, mostly in north Bengal, did not take any NoC from us and yet, they were in operation. We had told them that they cannot”.
This article further reported that Partha Chaterjee had told the state Assembly that ‘the state government reportedly received complaints against 500 such schools, 493 of which are under the scanner’. Hindustan Times has also reiterated the same thing and further reported that Partha Chatterjee told journalists outside the assembly that “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.”
From all this, it is evident that this piece of news is three years old and has been revived in the present context of post poll violence incidents in West Bengal.
To sum it up, old news of the West Bengal government banning 125 RSS-affiliated schools for not having NoC revived again.
