On Monday, former journalist Shahid Siddiqui tweeted a video of a mother and a toddler sitting on a thin rim connecting two compartments of a fast-moving train. He shared the video of the duo with the intention of criticising the government.
Siddiqui wrote, “Look at this mother travelling on a goods train with a child. For her risk of dying like this is less than dying of hunger in a heartless city.” He further claimed that such a miserable state of a person can only happen in a country like India. The tweet has now been deleted.
In the video, a woman dressed in pink clutches onto a train handle with one hand and her baby in the other. The woman, who is visibly impoverished, can be seen risking her life travelling on an iron rim connecting the two train compartments.
What is the Truth?
The video was uploaded on Youtube by a channel named Kaushik on September 13, 2016. The video which has about 864 views at the time of writing this article is accompanied by a caption that reads, “Most dangerous train journey in the world (2016)/ Bangladeshi Mother and Child.”
Some Twitter users have stated that action should be initiated against Siddiqui for sharing fake claims in a time of crisis. Siddiqui has been found peddling fake news on numerous other occasions too.
Why is the Section 54 of NDMA Act not being used against Shahid Siddiqui? pic.twitter.com/V4F09S76Tx
— Vijay (@centerofright) May 18, 2020
Other fake claims over the plight of migrants
While the government is pushing the administration and law and order machinery to help the migrant workers travelling to their native places, there have been many attempts by several prominent social media handles to use foreign, or old images to falsely claim plight of Indian migrant workers due to the coronavirus lockdown.
Earlier, former Aaj Tak and ABP News journalist Punya Prasun Bajpai had posted an image which showed the chapped, rough feet of some children. He added the text, “Mother India ke panv dekhe hain kabhi”? which means, ‘have you ever seen the feet of mother India? However, the image was from an old article on Pakistani children.
Even the Congress party had tried to pass off an image from Bangladesh as that of Indian migrant workers suffering due to lockdown. Congress’ SC department had shared an old image of a Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh to attack the central government for its alleged inefficiency of handling of the migrant workers’ issue.
After being called out, Siddqui has deleted his tweet and has apologised for the same.
