A post going viral on social media (here, here, and here) appeals to people to support the removal of the Waqf Board by giving a missed call to a specified number (9209204204). It emphasizes that today is the final day to act and asks users to share the message widely. This post is shared in the context of the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, introduced by the NDA government in the Lok Sabha on 08 August 2024. Let’s verify the post through this article.
Claim: Give a missed call to 9209204204 to support the revocation of the Waqf Board.
Fact: The viral post regarding giving a missed call to 9209204204 for supporting the Waqf Board’s revocation is false, as no official announcement has been made by the government in this regard. The attempts to call the number did not connect. The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, introduced by the NDA government, proposes over 40 changes to the Waqf Act, 1995, including the removal of several existing clauses. A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) was formed to review the bill and make recommendations after gathering public feedback. Notices with QR codes were issued by both the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and the Vishva Hindu Parishad inviting suggestions on the bill, but neither organization released any phone numbers for submitting feedback. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To verify the viral claim, we conducted a Google keyword search which led us to reports (here and here ) which reported that following a motion put forward by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) was established to review the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024. During its first meeting on 22 August 2024, the JPC, chaired by Jagdambika Pal, suggested placing a newspaper advertisement to gather feedback from the public and other stakeholders. Accordingly, on 30 August 2024, the Lok Sabha Secretariat issued an advertisement inviting individuals and organizations to submit their suggestions via post, fax, or email. The deadline for submissions was extended to midnight on 16 September 2024.
On 31 August 2024, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board released a notice titled “NO WAQF AMENDMENT BILL,” appealing to the public to scan the QR code and use the provided link to submit their suggestions to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).
We scanned the QR code, which directed us to a pre-drafted email with the subject line “Complete Rejection of the Waqf Amendment Bill, 2024.”
Further investigation led us to a tweet reposted on X by Vishava Hindu Parishad which was captioned “Today, at the #Gujarat State Waqf Board branch, the Bajrangis of Gandhinagar peacefully got people to scan the code to cancel the Waqf law in the Waqf branch itself and successfully completed the campaign.”
The Vishva Hindu Parishad also posted a notice with a QR code, appealing to the public to scan the code and use the provided link to submit their suggestions to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC). We scanned the QR code, which directed us to a pre-drafted email with the subject “Suggestions and Complete Support for the Waqf Amendment Bill, 2024.”
We also attempted to call the viral phone number but were unable to connect. Additionally, we did not find any official announcement about this number ‘9209204204’ which confirms that this post is fake.
To sum up, the viral post appealing to give a missed call to 9209204204 to support the revocation of the Waqf Board is fake, the government or the JPC have not issued any such official number for this purpose
