Photo of Hostel on Jamia Campus Falsely Shared as Exclusive Hostel at JNU for Muslim Students from Jammu & Kashmir…

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is making headlines again. This time for anti-Brahmin graffiti on the walls of the university. On Thursday several walls of a building at JNU were defaced with anti-Brahmin slogans, reported The Hindu. 

The images of these graffiti on the walls of JNU went viral on social media platforms. This in turn sparked outrage on social media platforms. #Brahmin_Lives_Matter started trending on Twitter. The JNU Teachers forum and Vice Chancellor Prof. Santishree D. Pandit took note of the event. VC Pandit has directed the Dean of School of International Studies and Grievances Committee to initiate an enquiry and submit a report on the entire incident.

In the middle of this, a screenshot of what appears to be a WhatsApp message has resurfaced on Twitter. You can see a screenshot of the tweet below:

In the screenshot, we can see a photograph of a multistoried building and along with it the following text:

“This is not a five star hotel. This is hostel constructed by Congress government in 2012 for JNU students from J&K. It has 400 rooms. 

In this hostel no Hindus or other religion (students) can stay. Islam students (from) J&K will stay here free of cost and study on the cost of our whole Indian taxpayers money.

After completing the course, they will shout slogans against the Indian nation. What a secular party is Congress?”

However, when we checked how true these claims are, we found that the WhatsApp message is misleading. Let us find out what the truth is.

Fact Check

We did a Google Reverse Image search on the image of the building and we found that the building is indeed a hostel but not on the JNU campus. The hostel is located at Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University in Delhi.  We also found that this misinformation has been making rounds since past few years. Many organizations have previously debunked this claim.

The tweet above shows the same building from different angles. The name of the building can also be read clearly in the images shared in the tweet. We can see the hostel building bears the name Jamia Millia Islamia.

Thus, this is not a hostel at JNU. We searched about this hostel and found that the claim made in the post that the hostel is only for Muslim students from J&K is false. The hostel is for girls only and it was constructed following a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in 2012 between Jamia and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). 

As per a report by The Hindu, former Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti inaugurated a 400-bed hostel at Jamia Millia Islamia on 18 November 2017. The hostel caters to female students from J&K pursuing any course at the Central University. 

As per the hostel manual of JMI, the J&K hostel has 700 beds and it is only for bonafide female students of the University. The Eligibility Criteria laid down in the manual is as follows:

a. Accommodation in the University Hostel is available only to bonafide students of full time courses.

b. Applicants must have secured a minimum of 45% marks in aggregate in the last qualifying examination.

Reserved Seats

a. In each hall of residence, 50 seats are reserved for NRI students.

b. In each hall of residence, some seats are reserved for physically challenged students.

It nowhere mentions that it will not admit any other girls apart from Kashmiri Muslim girls. In addition, the residence in this hostel is not free. Only physically challenged students and students whose parents income is less than or equal to 1.5 lac rupees are exempted from paying the room rent.

Conclusion

The claim made in the screenshot about exclusive hostel in JNU for Muslim students from J&K is False. The above investigation shows that the photo being shared is of the J&K hostel in Jamia Millia Islamia University and it does not provide free residence to only Muslim students from J&K.