Fact Check: High on ganja, students fight in Tamil Nadu? No, video is from Puducherry
A video is going viral on social media claiming that school students in Tamil Nadu’s Chengalpattu district attacked each other under the influence of ganja.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 17 March 2025 10:28 AM IST
Claim: The video shows school students fighting each other after getting high on ganja in Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu.
Fact: The claim is false. The incident took place in Ariyur, Puducherry, in 2024. News reports did not mention drugs being involved.
Hyderabad: A video showing boys in school uniforms engaged in a fight, with one of them attacking another with a wooden log, is going viral on social media. The video is being shared with the claim that the students were under the influence of Ganja (marijuana) and that the incident took place in Tamil Nadu’s Chengalpattu district.
A Facebook user shared the video with a sarcastic remark aimed at the Tamil Nadu government, captioning it, “In Chennai’s Chengalpattu district, school children raised under Tamil Nadu’s governance are joyfully dancing and singing under the influence of ganja.”
An archive of a similar claim on X can be found here.
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The incident took place in Puducherry in 2024.
A reverse image search of the video’s keyframes led to a Facebook post by a user named Thala Mahesh, who had shared the same viral video. In his post, he stated, “This incident took place in Ariyur, Puducherry. Teachers should be given full freedom to use the cane again.”
Puducherry is the capital of the Union Territory of Puducherry. It is situated on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal and is about 135 km from Chennai Airport. It is bounded on the east by the Bay of Bengal and on the three sides by Tamil Nadu.
Taking this lead, we used the available information to conduct a Google keyword search. This led us to a news report about the viral video by Indian Express Tamil, published on September 16, 2024. The report features a screengrab from the viral video.
According to the report, a dispute broke out among students at a government school in Ariyur, Puducherry. After school, students engaged in a heated argument on the road and began physically attacking each other. At one point, they picked up a wooden log lying nearby and started hitting each other brutally. This incident has caused a stir in Puducherry and is now going viral on the internet.
On September 16, 2024, Dinamalar also reported the incident with the same details. Neither report mentioned that the students were under the influence of drugs.
Therefore, we conclude that the viral video claiming that students in Chengalpattu district attacked each other under the influence of ganja shows an incident that took place in Puducherry in 2024. The claim is false.
