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| - Fact Check: Bogus Defence Ministry letter about Agnipath Scheme goes viral with false claims
India Today AFWA reached out to Army spokesperson Sudhir Chamoli, who confirmed that the Defence Ministry letter about Agnipath scheme was fake.
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India Today Fact Check
This letter is fake. The Defence Ministry hasn't released any such letter regarding the Agnipath Scheme.
Amid the widespread protest against the Centre's Agnipath Scheme for short-term recruitment in the armed forces, a letter purportedly from the Ministry of Defence is making the rounds on social media. Per the letter, personnel under Other Ranks (ORs) attested after January 1, 2019, and “not promoted to a substantive rank of Naik or equivalent” on July 1 “are to be kept under the Agnipath Scheme.”
One such post can be seen below.
AFWA also received multiple requests to fact-check this letter on our WhatsApp tipline number. In our investigation, we found that the letter in circulation is fake. The Ministry of Defence has not released any such letter regarding the Agnipath Scheme.
AFWA probe
The letter in question was signed by MK Ramanna, Additional Secretary to GoI. However, we couldn’t find any officer by that name in the rank of Additional Secretary on the Ministry of Defence website. The officer's telephone number in the letter also doesn’t exist.
Moreover, had the ministry released such a letter, it would have definitely made the news. But we couldn’t find any report that said any such thing.
AFWA then reached out to Army spokesperson Sudhir Chamoli, who confirmed that the letter was fake. The fact-check wing of the Press Information Bureau also tweeted saying the Ministry of Defence did not release any such letter regarding the Agnipath Scheme.
Claim: ORs attested after 1 Jan 2019 & those not promoted to a substantive rank of Naik or equivalent on 1 July 2022 are to be kept under #AgnipathScheme #PIBFactCheck
This letter is #Fake
@DefenceMinIndia has not issued this letter pic.twitter.com/79SEUU1hHv — PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) June 20, 2022
Agnipath is a new scheme by the government of India for the recruitment of youths (between the ages of seventeen-and-a-half and 23) into the armed forces for a period of four years. Those selected under this scheme would form a distinct rank that would be different from any other existing ranks.
It is thus clear that the letter in circulation is bogus and not released by the Ministry of Defence.
(With inputs from Yash Mittal)
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