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‘Shifuji’ Shaurya Bhardwaj has over a million followers on YouTube, and there was ‘popular demand’ to have him conduct the training programme, ABVP claims.

New Delhi: The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS, is organising self-defence training classes for young women across the country, the latest chapter of which is on at Delhi University’s polo ground until 2 November.

The programme is for women aged 16-25, and is being organised in collaboration with ‘Mission Prahar’, which claims to have trained 39 lakh women since 1999. However, ‘Mission Prahar’ is run by Deepak Dubey alias ‘Shifuji’ Shaurya Bhardwaj, who has gained infamy for allegedly impersonating a commando trainer for the Indian military, and many other allegations.

Defending its choice of training partner, ABVP’s national media convener Monica Chaudhary said: “Besides providing self-defence training, our aim is to boost self-confidence among girls. After watching his videos, we found him the appropriate person to conduct such training, and it has yielded great results.”

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The ABVP has admitted that irrespective of Shifuji’s credentials, there was “popular demand” for him to conduct the training programme, which swung its decision in his favour.

Impersonating a commando trainer

‘Shifuji’ had pretended to be a commando trainer in his blogs and YouTube videos in 2016 and 2017, a criminal offence according Section 419 of the Indian Penal Code. He could be seen wearing a maroon beret and the Indian Navy Marine Commandos’ badge.

However, he hasn’t been charged for the offence. Activist Abhishek Shukla had lodged a complaint against him with the defence and home ministries, as well as FIRs in Mumbai and Ahmedabad. But no action has been taken against ‘Shifuji’ so far.

“The Indian Navy had responded to my complaint and said it couldn’t take any action. According to the law, a case of impersonation could have been registered if he had been wearing a full uniform with rank and name, and not just a badge,” Shukla said.

Shukla added that ‘Shifuji’ was warned by military intelligence, and since then, has stopped wearing the badge and deleted his old posts.

However, the administrator for Shifuji’s official website has denied any of this.

“Shifuji has never stated that he is an army officer, nor has he claimed to be recruited or held any post in the armed forces,” said a blog post by the admin, months after the relevant content was deleted.

The post also mentioned that he is not a “full time commando trainer”.

“He has trained many military units in his long career as a freelance trainer, and is instrumental in developing combat and strategic training programs for both the army and state level forces,” the admin said.

The post also refused to accept that he had worn parts of military uniform.

“Be noted that the badge worn by Shifuji, is a pattern akin to badges of military ranks and combatants in other part of the world, and worn without any restraint,” it said.

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Other controversies

‘Shifuji’ was known as Deepak Dubey before he changed his name to Shaurya Bhardwaj. The nickname combines ‘Shifu’, the honorific for master in Cantonese, and ‘ji’, the Hindi honorific. His website refers to him as ‘Grandmaster’ as well.

In addition to posing as a marine commando of the Indian Navy, ‘Shifuji’ claimed to be a special commando trainer for combatants of the Indian Army’s fighting regiment. Lallantop and Altnews did detailed exposes on him in February 2017, debunking many of his claims.

‘Shifuji’ now has more than a million followers on YouTube, and appears on high-decibel TV debates as well. He also acted in the Tiger Shroff-starrer Baaghi, and now trains actors for action sequences, and has been misquoted by various news portals as an ex-army commando.

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