A video showing huge plume of smoke billowing from vehicle dump area has recently surfaced on social media site X(Twitter). It has been reported that fire broke out on May 30 at Wazirabad’s Police training centre in Northeast Delhi. Nearly 300 vehicles were destroyed including 125 four wheelers and 175 two wheelers. However, no causalities have been reported in this incident. In its aftermath, a Bangladeshi handle shared a news on X claiming that Maoist rebels attack and set fire to a police training centre. Moreover, the media outlet Hindustan Times has been cited as the source of shared news.

An account with the username@FaryalBD shared the video of recent mishap on X and wrote: “Breaking news: Maoist rebels attack and set fire to a police training center in New Delhi’s Sonia Vihar. This is the third Maoist attack in a major Indian city in a week. Stay with us for updates” (Translated from Bengali)

Fact-Check

To verify the reality of the above-shared claim, the DFRAC team examined the recently published news article by Hindustan Times. The article’s headline read: “Delhi: 300 vehicles gutted in fire at Wazirabad police malkhana”. No such words (Maoist rebels attack) have appeared in the published article.

Upon investigating further, we also examined the latest reports by NDTV, Livemint and millenniumpost. None of the reports cited: “Maoist rebel attack and set fire to a police training center in New Delhi’s Sonia Vihar”.

According to NDTV’s report, the cause of fire is yet to be ascertained.

Whereas, Millenniumpost’s report mentioned that Divisional Officer DFS, Ashok Kumar Jaiswal suggested here can be two possible reasons for the fire at the site. Firstly, a discarded cigarette or bidi butts igniting dry leaves or spontaneous combustion. He also mentioned the possibility of sparks from vehicle batteries contributing to the incident.

Apparently, the claim stating that Maoist rebels attack and set fire to a police training center is false.

Conclusion

It is evident from DFRAC’s fact-check that the claim made by Bangladeshi handle asserting that Maoist rebels attack and set fire to a police training center and citing Hindustan Times as its source is completely misleading since the report stated no such words in its content.

Analysis: Misleading