As several parts of the country, particularly north-east India, is in the throes of raging floods, a raft of unsubstantiated images, claiming to be related to the devastating impact of the deluge, is doing the rounds on the Internet. These pictures, ranging from capturing the odd heroics of people in the face of deadly floods to ruinous destruction the increased levels of waters had wreaked, are habitually circulated across social media platforms.
Along this line, a set of pictures of a teenage boy demonstrating unprecedented valour by saving a baby deer from drowning is widely being shared on the Internet, especially on the microblogging website Twitter. The boy is being hailed on social media platform as “Real Bahubali” for extricating a distressed fawn who was on the verge of being drowned in the floodwaters. The social media posts attributed the incident to the Indian state of Assam by claiming that the boy who is seen in the pictures saving the fawn was from the north-eastern state Assam.
“Real Bahubali of Assam who saved a fawn from drowning,” read the posts lauding the boy for rescuing the embattled baby deer. The boy is seen holding the deer with his one hand while the rest of his body is submerged in water. The picture bears striking resemblance to one of the iconic scenes from the South Indian Blockbuster ‘Baahubali’, where actor Ramya Krishnan, playing the role of Sivagami, raises her hand above the swirling water, holding up a baby.
Several Twitter users then posted the images of the boy’s heroics, likening him to the real life “Bahubali”.
The image of the boy saving a fawn is from 2014
While the act of the boy, fearlessly staking his life to save the baby deer from drowning is worth admiring and applauding, the incident shared by the Twitter users, however, is over six years old. Moreover, the incident is not from the Indian state of Assam but India’s eastern neighbour, Bangladesh. It pertains to February 2014 from Noakhali village in Bangladesh, when the young fawn had become separated from its family during the torrential rains and fast-rising floods. A boy called Belal had thoughtlessly jumped into the raging river and rescued the beleaguered baby deer to safety.
After the images of the heroic act of the boy surfaced on the Internet, it has been reappearing on social media every year after that claiming it to be from various different places.
