AISA students did not “fake injuries” during JNU violence, photos viral with false claims

Several students were wounded in a clash allegedly over non-veg food being served at Kaveri Hostel of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on the day of Ram Navami. Visuals of students with injuries were widely circulating on social media. Amongst these are two pictures that show a student bleeding from her forehead and another student lying unconscious on a table.

One Tripti Garg shared these photos to insinuate that the students “faked” their injuries. This is because, in the first picture, the woman who has a head injury can be spotted attending to the unconscious student in the second photo. She doesn’t have a head injury in the second image. Gargi shared the pictures and wrote, “Magic in JNU”. This tweet garnered around 13,000 likes as of this writing.

Vijay Patel, “investigative journalist” and BJP supporter, also shared these photos and asked whether these students were “role-playing”. (Archived link)

Zee News journalist, Anubhav Shakya wrote, “…Blood without any injury and injury without any blood”. He later deleted his tweet. An archive of his tweet can be viewed here.

Several other Twitter users affiliated with ABVP shared these photos and wrote that the Left is back with its “old tactics” in JNU. These tweets were also accompanied by the hashtags ‘#Hinduphobicleft’ and ‘#AntiHinduLeft’. The tweets attached below can be viewed here – 1, 2, 3.

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Quite ironically, BJP Delhi spokesperson Naveen Kumar Jindal shared the pictures of the injured students and claimed they are ABVP members. (Archived link)

Fact-check

Alt News contacted JNU students who informed us that the woman in the blue kurti is Madhurima Kundu, an M.Phil student and AISA JNU unit secretary, and the woman bleeding from her forehead is Akhtarista Ansari, a student of M.A Sociology and AISA activist.

Ansari told us that a few people entered Kaveri Hostel and began rioting. Kundu had fainted during the clash and was made to lie down on a table in the mess. Ansari attended to Kundu and woke her up by sprinkling water. After Kundu gained consciousness and they were leaving Kaveri Hostel, a stone hit Ansari’s forehead. This means that the order of events has been reversed in the viral claims to suggest Ansari pretended to be injured.

The pictures that went viral on social media were shot on the mobile phone of M.Phil history student Dolan Samanta. She shared screenshots of her phone gallery with us and the metadata of the images in question. According to the metadata, the photo of the woman in a blue kurti (Madhurima Kundu) lying on a table was taken at 8:15 pm. The second picture in which the woman in a white top (Akhtarista Ansari) can be spotted with a head injury is from 8.21 pm. Ansari suffered a head wound six minutes after attending to Kundu.

Kundu also dismissed the viral claim in a tweet.

See the time when the photos were taken. A clear time gap of 6 minutes. I got unconscious after being hit. After I got control over myself, and we started moving out, Akhtarista was hit by a big rock.

Down with ABVP attack!
Right to Food Zindabad! pic.twitter.com/cR8hcrJlFh

— Madhurima Kundu (@madhurima_k_) April 11, 2022

Ansari shared with us pictures of her wounds, stitches and a hospital receipt that advises that the stitches should be removed after seven days.

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In one of her tweets, Ansari informed about being discharged from AIIMS.

I have been discharged from AIIMS and i am better now. Thanks to everyone for checking on me.
The fight against the Sanghi goons and fascist forces will go on.
Inquilab Zindabad.#ArrestSanghiGoons

— Akhtarista Ansari (@AktaristaAnsari) April 10, 2022

To conclude, the women seen in the photos are JNU students and AISA activists. The viral claim that they “faked” their injuries is false. A similar narrative was manufactured after the 2020 JNU violence when student union president Aishe Ghosh’s photos were shared to suggest that she pretended to be injured.