A photo is being shared on social media claiming it as visuals of UPTET aspirants sleeping under an open sky overnight near the examination centres in Uttar Pradesh. Following the UPTET examination paper leak, the Uttar Pradesh Government cancelled the UPTET examination scheduled on 28 November 2021. The UP Government re-scheduled the UPTET exam date to 26 December 2021. In the wake of the Uttar Pradesh Government’s decision to cancel the UPTET examination, this photo is being shared on social media. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Visuals of students sleeping under open sky overnight to attempt the UPTET examination which was cancelled on 28 November 2021 following a paper leak.
Fact: The photo shared in the post shows a group of protestors from Rajasthan, sleeping outside the Congress office in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Recently, the unemployed youth from Rajasthan staged a dharna outside the Lucknow Congress office, demanding a meeting with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. This photo has nothing to do with the re-scheduled UPTET examination. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the photo shared in the post, similar visuals were found in the photos and videos published recently by a few users on social media. They can be seen here, here and here. These users mentioned it as visuals of unemployed youth from Rajasthan, staging a dharna outside the Congress party office in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Upen Yadav, the president of Rajasthan Berojgar Ekikrat Mahasangh had shared a video with similar visuals on his Facebook page, on 27 November 2021. He mentioned it as visuals of unemployed youth from Rajasthan, sleeping the whole night without a mattress outside the Lucknow Congress party office.
On searching for more sources using these keywords, a video with similar visuals is found in an article published by the ‘Dhainik Bhaskar’ news website. Sharing the video, the ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ reported that several unemployed youth from Rajasthan got sick after they staged a dharna th entire night sleeping without a mattress. These unemployed youth from Rajasthan have been protesting outside the Lucknow Congress office, demanding a meeting with Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Several news websites published articles reporting this protest of Rajasthan unemployed youth outside the Congress office in Lucknow. They can be seen here and here.
When this photo went viral as the visuals of UPTET aspirants sleeping outside the examination halls in UP, the UP Police Fact Check team had issued a clarification mentioning that the visuals in the photo show a protest conducted by Rajasthan unemployed youth in Lucknow. Also, the UP Police arrested the key person who first spread this rumour on UPTET aspirants. From all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the photo shared in the post shows unemployed youth from Rajasthan sleeping outside the Lucknow Congress office.
To sum it up, visuals of Rajasthan unemployed youth staging protest outside the Lucknow Congress office is falsely linked to the re-scheduled UPTET exam.
