By Hazel Gandhi
A viral post claiming that the Delhi Public School in Goa recently gave permission to its female students to wear bikinis to school amid rising temperatures is satire.
BOOM found that the viral image and claim is from an Instagram account that regularly posts satirical news which are not based on real incidents.
The post shows the photo of a white bikini and carries the text, "DPS Goa allows bikni as girl's school uniform for summers as they find Goa's weather too hot and humid."
It is being shared on Facebook with varying captions. One post reads, "Who is teaching their daughter in Goa's DPS .."
(Original text in Hindi: "कोन कोन अपनी बेटी को पढ़ा रहा बे गोवा के DPS में ..")
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
The post is also circulating on Twitter.
Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the claim is false, and the post was first uploaded by @thekatvaindiaa, a satirical news page on Instagram.
We looked at the post and found 'The Katva' logo and handle on the image.
Using this information, we looked for the Instagram handle of @thekatvaindiaa, and found the same post uploaded on March 29, 2023.
We also found one story highlight titled 'Disclaimer', which specified that the posts on the account were not based on real incidents and requested followers to "not take this page seriously."
BOOM found that the page had earlier, too, posted a satire piece claiming a nurse cracked a crude joke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi while he was getting vaccinated and was fired for the same. The page had then gone viral causing it to issue an apology.
We had in 2021 fact-checked a post from a similar satire page, Real In Shots, which had claimed that a mosque played a song from the Korean-pop band BTS instead of the azaan. We then found that the Instagram satire account is a group of three such accounts, operated by a Trishit Banerjee. The Real In Shots page is a take on InShorts, the second page, RealNDVT is a take on news channel NDTV and the third is called @katvaIndia, designed to look like the right wing page TheTatva and a take on a pejorative slur used for Muslims in India. The page @katvaindia no longer exists, it has been replaced by another page with a similar name, @thekatvaindiaa.
We looked for articles online about this incident, and did not get any results. We also checked for the list of schools on DPS' website and found that there is no Delhi Public School in Goa.
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