12-Year-Old Video of Teachers' Protest Falsely Linked to Karnataka Hijab Row

The 12-year-old video shows teachers protesting against the Punjab government in Kapurthala.

The video is at least a decade old and shows teachers protesting in Punjab. It has no connection with the ongoing row over the hijab in Karnataka. 

(Source: Twitter/Altered by The Quint)

A graphic video of a group of women standing on top of a water tank and setting a piece of cloth on fire, immolating another woman in the process, is being shared on social media to claim that they were protesting against the wearing of hijab by burning it, but ended up burning themselves.

The claim comes amid the ongoing hijab row in Karnataka, which began when Muslim students were barred from entering educational institutes donning the hijab.

However, we found that the video had nothing to do with hijabs. The clip is from a 2010 protest against the Punjab government in Kapurthala by the teachers who were seeking admission to the elementary teachers' training (ETT) course and asking for regularisation of their service.

The woman, who succumbed to the burn injuries, was identified as 27-year-old Kiranjeet.

CLAIM

The short clip is being shared on Facebook and Twitter to claim that some women were protesting against the hijab and tried to burn it, but set themselves on fire instead.

(Disclaimer: Due to the graphic nature of the visuals, we have refrained from using them or any links to them.)

The claim was shared on Twitter.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

The video is being shared with the same narrative on Facebook.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

Using relevant keywords, we came across a longer version of the video uploaded to video hosting platform DailyMotion nearly seven years ago.

We found a video on DailyMotion which mentioned that it was uploaded seven years ago. 

(Source: DailyMotion/Screenshot)

This video included visuals of horrified onlookers and people rushing to the aid of the immolated woman. However, the caption mentioned that it showed women burning a hijab.

We took this video and fragmented it into keyframes and ran reverse image searches on them.

The results led us to a 2016 blog post, which mentioned that the incident had happened in Punjab. Adding 'Punjab' to other keywords like 'Women+Water Tank Fire,' we looked for news reports on the incident.

As per an archived The Indian Express report dated 8 February 2010, the video was from Kapurthala and showed teachers protesting against the government on top of a 100-foot-tall water tank outside the state's then education minister Upinderjit Kaur's residence.

The video shows a teachers' protest in Kapurthala, Punjab.

(Source: The Indian Express/Altered by The Quint)

It identified the woman who set herself on fire as Kiranjeet, who reportedly took the extreme step after being provoked by "undesirable" comments from Deputy Superintendent of Police Bahadur Singh, who was also present at the spot.

The report noted that the four women had been protesting against the government, seeking admission to the elementary teachers' training (ETT) course, adding that they had taught students up to Class 8 under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan scheme for five years.

We also came across a Zee News bulletin on the news organisation's verified YouTube channel, which had reported on Kiranjeet's demise at a Jalandhar Hospital after sustaining 90 percent burns. About 52 seconds into the report, we saw visuals that resembled the clip in the claim.

In both the frames, people wearing the same outfits were seen standing in the same order.

Women in both videos were standing in the same order.

(Source: Facebook/YouTube/Altered by The Quint)

Clearly, a 12-year-old, unrelated video is being shared to claim that a group of women protesting against the hijab set one of their own on fire while trying to burn the religious headscarf.

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