Ambedkarnagar Police has refuted claims made on social media that one Rizwan Ahmad was ‘beaten to death’ by the Police. In its rebuttal, the Uttar Pradesh Police has quoted the family doctor of the deceased saying that the deceased was brought to his attention by a relative of the person a few days earlier. The doctor, Abdul Hakeem, was told by the relative that Rizwan was injured when he fell off his motorcycle and he prescribed him some first aid medicines. When the doctor saw him next, he saw that his feet were swollen and he suspected some infection. He suggested that the family take the deceased somewhere he could receive more critical treatment.
(1/2) सोशल मीडिया एवं मीडिया पर वायरल पुलिस की पिटाई से युवक की ईलाज के दौरान मौत की खबर का खण्डन व पारिवारिक डॉक्टर की बाईट :- @Uppolice @dgpup @adgzonelucknow @igrangeayodhya @JagranNews @AmarUjalaNews @ANI @NavbharatTimes @Live_Hindustan @bstvlive @soochnanews pic.twitter.com/tCdgldyop9
— AMBEDKARNAGAR POLICE (@ambedkarnagrpol) April 19, 2020
The family doctor also said that when he had visited Rizwan’s home, he had asked them how does he sit on motorcycles that he was injured so grievously but no one said that he was beaten by the Police or anything. He also said that it was said by people that Rizwan Ahmad consumed drugs such as charas and was extremely thin. He also said that Rizwan had been turned out of his house by his father and made a living by selling vegetables. The doctor also said that it is very possible that he died due to the wound he suffered.
Ambedkarnagar Police has also said in a statement that the post mortem conducted on the corpse did not show any wound caused by lathi. The post mortem report found infection in the heart and lungs of the deceased. The statement also said that the wound had been caused due to his fall from a motorcycle. It also appealed to people to not spread false claims on the matter any further.
Fake news on death of Rizwan Ahmad
The fake news was spread by numerous prominent entities on social media including the verified handles of UP Congress and the Samajwadi Party. The claims have now been refuted by the Ambedkarnagar Police but the tweets were not deleted as of the time of writing this report.
The Telegraph, too, published the fake news where it claimed that Mohammed Rizwan was beaten up trying to buy food. The far-left propagandist media outlet, which is a known purveyor of fake news, claimed that Rizwan Ahmad became “the first fatality from purported police high-handedness in enforcing the lockdown in Uttar Pradesh.”
Another troll, Asif Khan, also made the false claim citing a report by The Hindu which claimed that “Rizwan Ahmed, 22, a daily wage worker, died in U.P.’s Ambedkar Nagar district on Saturday three days after he was allegedly thrashed by police when he stepped out during the lockdown period.”
As has become clear by this point, the Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic is also accompanied by a Fake News epidemic aided actively by the mainstream media. Even in the midst of a global crisis, the media has demonstrated amply that it will not abandon its penchant for spreading fake news and panic to achieve its partisan political objectives. The recent death of Rizwan that sparked the latest outbreak of fake news, which has now been busted by the Ambedkarnagar Police, is the latest example of it.
