By Sk Badiruddin
A dramatised video of an actor playing a reporter and busting a racket of proxy teachers in a school is viral as a real incident on Facebook. The video shows three instances where the reporter visits a school on camera and catches proxy and underqualified teachers red handed.
Proxy teachers are people who are appointed illegally to work in place of government appointed teachers in exchange of money or other favours.
BOOM found that the video is a scripted act by YouTuber Harsh Rajput. The original video replicates a format of a news bulletin and is named Dhakad News, showing the reporter barge into a school to bust the proxy teacher racket.
The video starts with a reporter visiting a school premise and interviewing a person who teaches Mathematics. When asked about Mathematics problem, the teacher says that he is suffering from 'depression' and unable to reply. Later, he interacts with a Sanskrit teacher and finds that he is a proxy teacher, in place of the latter's brother. Moments later, the reporter barges into the principal's room to find that the principal's husband is heading the school.
The video has been shared widely on Facebook with a caption in Hindi that translates to, "Dangerous reporter" (In Hindi: खतरनाक रिपोर्टर)
Watch the video here and here.
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Fact Check
BOOM ran a search on Facebook and found one post which reflects suggestion leads below the caption of the post, "Watch more original videos by : Harsh Rajput.
The video also has a credit thumbnail of HARSH RAJPUT on YouTube.
The link under these posts led us to the official Facebook page of Harsh Rajput, who has identified himself as an actor . According to the bio, Rajput defines himself as 'Viral dhakad reporter #harshrajput'.
BOOM searched Rajput's page and found that the original 8.16 minutes video was posted on July 9, 2022. The video initially shows a disclaimer message saying that it is a work of fiction and not a real incident. Dhakad News replicates news bulletin formats to show dramatised incidents.
The post is captioned as, "DHAKAD REPORTER IN SCHOOL | HARSH RAJPUT SCRIPTED SKETCH"
The same video was uploaded on Rajput's YouTube channel, Harsh Rajput Dhakad News. The video is titled as "The School| Harsh Rajput" with a disclaimer in description that it is "scripted comedy sketch made for entertainment only."
The viral video shared on Facebook does not show the initial disclaimer message.
BOOM Hindi hasdebunked another similar scripted video based on Rajput's work. We have reached out to Rajput for a response, and the article will be updated once we receive a reply.
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