Video of students protesting bus ignoring stop in Kerala shared with communal spin
NewsMeter found that the video was shot during a protest by the students of Khansa Women’s College in Kasaragod, Kerala about private buses not stopping at a recently built bus stop.
By - HABEEB RAHMAN YP | Published on 27 Oct 2023 2:51 PM GMT
Kerala: A video of a dispute between a few Burqa-wearing girls and an old Hindu lady in a bus is being widely circulated on X with the claim that Muslim women are not allowing other women to travel in public buses in Kerala without a burqa.
An X user shared the video with the caption, “Congrats hindus, Kerala. Muslim women passengers say they will not allow women in bus without burqa. Now, Hindus have to cover their head to travel by public transport. Surprisingly, this incident is not covered by the news media. Goods own country is now allah’s own country (sic)”
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the video shows female students of the Khansa Women’s College in Kasaragod district of Kerala protesting when the bus did not stop at a bus stop and has nothing to do with a burqa.
As it is a clipped video and the conversation among the persons in the video is incomplete, we ran a keyword search in Malayalam which led to various media reports covering a students’ protest. We found a viral video shared by the Facebook page of Reporter TV.
The viral video showed a group of girl students protesting in front of a bus. Upon close analysis, we found that this video shows the same protest in the viral video from outside the bus.
Here is a comparison of the interior and the exterior of the bus which proves that both videos show the same incident.
Next, we found a news report on Reporter TV’s website, published on October 22, 2023, corresponding to the video. The news agency reported that the incident inside the bus occurred in Bhaskara Nagar on the Kumbala-Mulleria road in the Kasaragod district of Kerala, on October 22. It says that the RTO has recently permitted new stops for private buses but the bus in the video did not stop at one such newly commissioned bus stop which angered the students since they have to walk longer to reach their college.
Mathrubhumi also published a report on the incident.
For further clarification, we reached out to Kumbala police station SHO who confirmed that there is no communal angle to the protest as claimed in the social media post. “I have seen this video. There is only one issue, which has to do with the bus not stopping at a recently constructed bus stop. The students inside the bus are talking about the same issue with the old lady in the video, as she was irritated due to the delay caused by the protest. There are no communal or religious angles to it. We have received no such complaints from anyone so far.”
We also reached out to the Khansa Women’s College director BM Ashraf who seconded the police version. “Our students have been demanding a bus stop in front of the college for a long time. The RTO has approved it and a new bus stop has been constructed recently. Even after that, private buses continued to miss the stop and the students protested against it. As the bus got delayed due to the protest, some other passengers got irritated and there was a dispute between them and the students. There are no communal angles in it.”
Hence, it is clear that the incident has nothing to do with wearing a burqa. Also, the video shows passengers from other religious communities without a burqa. Hence the claim is false.
