CLAIM
A video of Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain is going viral on social media, where he seems to be saying that of the 30,000 people who attended the Nizamuddin Markaz event, not even one was found to be positive for COVID-19. It also claims that only a beggar sitting outside the Markaz was found to be coronavirus positive.
This is the message being forwarded with the video: “*दिल्ली के स्वास्थ्य मत्रीं सत्येन्द्र जैन ने कहा 30 हजार में से एक भी नही मिला मरकज़ में कोरोना पाॅजिटिव,मरकज के बाहर बैठा एक भिखारी निकला पाॅजिटिव*” (Translation: Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said that not a single one of the 30 thousand in Markaz was found coronavirus positive, a beggar sitting outside Markaz turned out to be positive.)
The context of this post is the Tablighi Jamaat event held at Delhi’s Nizamuddin Markaz in March.
The video was found to be viral on Facebook.
The post was found to be viral on Twitter as well.
Amongst those who shared the post on Twitter was politician and former actress Nagma, who also added that Jain was rubbishing claims of COVID-19 patients being from Tablighi Jamaat.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The claim shared with the post is false because Jain is not saying that no one in the Markaz was found positive but that out of the 30,000 people tested in Nizamuddin, no one apart from the beggar sitting outside the Markaz was found to be coronavirus positive. The post misquotes him and has clipped a part of a larger video.
WHAT WE FOUND
We noticed that there was an ANI microphone visible in the video. Therefore, we ran a search on ANI’s YouTube channel for videos with Satyendar Jain and came across the full video, from which the viral snippet has been clipped.
As can be heard in the video, Jain is actually talking about how much testing is being carried out in Delhi and says that they need two lakh personal protective equipment (PPEs) immediately.
Talking about testing in hotspots, he says that in Nizamuddin, they have scanned 30,000 people in six thousand homes. “We found only one positive out of that because of the Markaz, the beggar who used to sit and beg for alms outside the Markaz,” he says, adding that everyone else has been found clean so far.
According to a Livemint report dated 8 April, the Delhi government was going to start conducting “rapid random" testing in hotspots.
Moreover, a Hindustan Times report dated 15 April stated that two-thirds of the 1,561 people being treated for coronavirus in Delhi, meaning a total of 1,080, were linked to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation.
Therefore, it is clear that a video in which the Delhi Health Minister is talking about testing in Delhi is being used to misquote him and indicate that nobody from the Markaz has tested positive.
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