Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday paid a visit to the Morbi bridge collapse site and also met the survivors of the incident at the hospital on Tuesday. He assessed the situation and also spoke to people involved in rescue and relief efforts at the site of the unfortunate incident in Morbi.
After PM Modi’s visit, several left liberals took to social media to mock the victims of the incident and claim that the survivors of the incident at the hospital were planted ahead of PM Modi’s visit to the town. Several left-liberal social media users and journalists shared two juxtaposed images of a man, one with a gauze rolled around his right knee, and another with a plaster on his right leg, to insinuate that the survivors at the hospital were not real.
Twitter User Abhijit Dipke shared an image of a survivor and stated that he got a plaster overnight just because PM Modi was visiting. Vinod Kapri, a journalist turned filmmaker, repeated the same message from Abhijit by quoting it in a tweet.
Abusive troll Swati Chaturvedi, who is referred to as a journalist, also took to Twitter and used the same image on similar lines in an attempt to tarnish the image of Gujarat and demean the visit by the Prime Minister. Swati wrote, “The permanent patient. How come the same gent met Vaghela & then Modi today? Is this the Gujarat model?”
Rohini Singh, a ‘journalist’ working for The Wire, the left-leaning publication that made headlines for its hit job against Amit Malviya over its Meta stories, also partook in propagating the misleading claim. All these tweets had the same image implying that a survivor was planted and his leg was plastered before PM Modi’s visit of the hospital.
However, victim Ashwin, whose image was shared on social media and who is undergoing treatment in the hospital at present, refuted the claims that he is a ‘planted’ patient at the hospital for the PM’s visit. He said that he is a victim of the bridge collapse, his leg was initially bandaged and later it was plastered after assessment by doctors. Ashwin revealed that the plaster was put up on his leg after the doctors carried out an X-ray and diagnosed a severe fracture in his leg. “Earlier, there was a small bandage. Later the doctors found out that my leg was fractured and so they put up plaster on my legs”, Ashwin said while talking to a Lallantop interviewer.
He also clarified that earlier he was allotted bed number 125 but now had been shifted to 126 as one of the patients in the ward had been discharged. “The doctors shifted one of the lady patients to another ward. So bed numbers of several patients including mine have been changed”, he stated. Further, he mentioned that PM Modi talked to him and also inquired about his health.
PM मोदी आज मोरबी में एक मरीज़ से मिले। जिसकी पट्टी और प्लास्टर वाली दो तस्वीर के सहारे फ़र्ज़ी मरीज़ साबित करने की कोशिश की गई।
— Abhinav Pandey (@Abhinav_Pan) November 1, 2022
ये सरासर गलत है।इनका नाम अश्विन है।
पहले पट्टी बंधी थी,एक्सरे के बाद प्लास्टर लगा।जो बेसिक है।हमारी टीम से बेड नंबर का सच भी बताया। pic.twitter.com/bjnjkAhSRZ
It is not sure why left-liberals would claim that the govt will plant fake patients in the hospital for the PM’s visit, or will apply unnecessary plaster, when the Morbi tragedy is real, where over a hundred people died and many more were injured, who are being treated. It is also common sense that when such incidents happen and a large number of injured people are admitted to a hospital, first all of them are given first aid, after that their medical conditions are assessed based on severity and only after that, their real treatment begins.
Therefore, it is quite normal that Ashwin, and perhaps many others, received only bandages and other such minor treatments at the beginning, and after that, they were examined and necessary additional treatments were prescribed. It is surprising that Modi-haters saw conspiracy in this tragic case also.
On Monday, hours after the suspension bridge over the Machchhu River in Morbi, Gujarat, collapsed claiming around 135 lives and injuring several other persons, CCTV footage emerged showing that a few people were continuously shaking the bridge, moments before the unfortunate tragedy. The bridge collapsed at around 6:30 pm when around 400 people were on the bridge.
The bridge was closed for operational use about 7 months ago. A private company by the name of Oreva Group (Ajanta Manufacturing Private Limited) was given the contract in March of this year to renovate and maintain the said bridge. The suspension bridge, which is also known as the jhoolta pool, was reopened on the occasion of Gujarati New Year Day on October 26 this year after the completion of the renovation task of the bridge.
However, the Morbi Municipality said that the private firm threw open the bridge to the public without obtaining a fitness certificate from the Municipality. The 150-year-old bridge located 300 km from Vadodara could take the weight of only about 125 people but there were around 400 people on the bridge when the incident happened. Many of them were performing Chhath Puja rituals on the bridge. The death toll in the Morbi bridge disaster has risen to around 135 while a total of 180 were successfully rescued by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams.
The state government has announced a compensation of Rs 4 lakh for each of those killed in the accident and Rs 50,000 for those injured. The Prime Minister also has announced monetary assistance of Rs. 2 lakh for each of the victims’ families.
