A video clip of 1:42 minutes which shows arms training for children is shared on social media platforms claiming it to be from Indian Madrasas.
In the video, kurta clad children donning skullcaps are seen trained by a elder man on how to use arms and ammunition.
However, we have found out that the claim is misleading. The video is clipped from an Al Jazeera documentary of 2015 filmed over the expansion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Afghanistan.
The video is shared with a caption that reads: “माननीय मुख्यमंत्री श्री @himantabiswa. At @CMOfficeAssam आपने मदरसे जो बंद करके अच्छा काम किया है नहीं तो इसमें ऐसी ट्रेनिंग दी जाती है मदरसे में छात्र उच्च शिक्षा प्राप्त करते हुए @HMOIndia.”
(Translation: Honorable Chief Minister Shri @himantabiswa. At @CMOfficeAssam you have done a good job by closing the madrassa, otherwise, such training is given to the students in the madrasa while pursuing higher education @HMOIndia)
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
Several other users have shared the video on Twitter and Facebook making the same claim.
FactO Check:
The video carries subtitles in English and also has the logo of Al Jazeera at the left bottom corner. Taking a cue from this, we first extracted the keyframes using the InVID WeVerify chrome extension and reverse searched them using the keywords “Al Jazeera, Children arms training”.
The result took us to an article by Al Jazeera published on 1 November 2015 with the title that reads: “ISIL and the Taliban”. The article is about ISIL’s emergence in Afghanistan and its battle with the Taliban for supremacy.
The article carries several images with striking similarities with the keyframes of the viral video and it also carries a documentary of 47 minutes.
Images from the article:
(Source: Al Jazeera/Screenshot)
The description of the images says “children as young as five years are receiving weapons and Jihad training”.
We then watched the full documentary and found that the viral video is clipped at the 45:53 minutes mark. On comparing we found similar visuls.
The documentary was also published by Al Jazeera on YouTube on 2 November 2015.
Conclusion:
Therefore, it is evident from the above findings that the viral clip is not from India.
