Fact Check: Firearms training clip from 2015 documentary on ISIL, Taliban in Afghanistan falsely shared as 'madrasa education'
India Today
A video of Muslim children receiving firearms training has gone viral on social media, with the claim that the images demonstrate the quality of education provided by madrasas. India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the video to be old.
A video of Muslim children receiving firearms training went viral on social media with claims that these visuals showed the kind of education madrasas provided.
One Facebook user shared the video with the Hindi caption, “Students pursuing higher education in Madrasa”.
Another person on Twitter shared the video, thanking Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for shutting down madrasas, adding, “Such training is given to the students pursuing higher education in madrasas.”
In December 2020, when Sarma was Education Minister, the Assam government passed a law repealing the Assam Madrasa Education (Provincialisation) Act and Assam Madrassa Education (Provincialisation of Services of Employees and Re-organisation of Madrassa Educational Institutions) Act, 2018, to abolish state-run Madrasas. Earlier this year, in February, the Gauhati High Court upheld the law.
The India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found that this video was from a 2015 Al Jazeera documentary on ISIL and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The clip showed ISIL fighters training Afghani children to use firearms.
The viral posts are archived here and here.
At the 14-second mark in the viral video, we noticed the Al Jazeera logo. We also caught glimpses of English subtitles throughout the video.
