Recently, an image has surfaced on social media platforms claiming that a school in Pakistan that was originally named after ‘Seth Kooverji Khimji Lohana’ has recently been renamed after Nobel peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai. A picture of a school’s entrance that has two boards with different names is being shared along with this claim.

Kooverji Khimji was a respected philanthropist with contributions to the education sector. His name in history highlights the Gujarati Sindhi contribution to the making of Karachi.

A Facebook user shared the image with a caption in Hindi that can be roughly translated to, “It must have happened like this. Tejo Mahalaya became Taj Mahal, Ram temple became Babri and Kashi temple became Gyanvapi. There are thousands of such stories, but this is the latest.”

The image is also doing rounds on Twitter with the same claim.

The viral image shows two boards, in which the smaller board has the name “Seth Kooverji Khimji Lohana Gujarati School”, while the bigger board says “Malala Yousuf Zai Govt. Girls Secondary School, Mission Road, Karachi”.

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FACT CHECK

NewsMobile fact-checked the viral post and found it to be shared with a misleading claim.

On performing a relevant keyword search, we found a report published by the Times of India on July 10, 2021. As per the report, the original name of the Gujarati school in Pakistan’s Karachi will be restored by the Sindh government. The report further adds that the school was renamed as Malala Yousafzai Govt Girls Secondary High School back in February 2012, and not recently, as being claimed in the viral post.

As per another report, the Sindh government has agreed to restore the school’s original name after a sustained campaign led by journalists and social activists. The decision came after several people including Pakistan-based journalist Sanjay Sadhwani, social activist Kapil Dev, and Malala’s father Ziauddin Yousafzai requested Sindh education minister Saeed Ghani to respect history and restore the school’s old name.

In response to the appeal, Ghani promised to do the same.

 

In conclusion, we can say that the image is being shared with a misleading claim.

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