Social media is awash with 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 victims of the Morbi bridge collapse were planted ahead of PM Modi’s visit to the town to meet kin of victims and those injured in the tragic accident.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the scene of the collapsed Morbi bridge. Several teams from the NDRF and Indian Army have been deployed in the region where the search operation is being undertaken in the Machchhu River.
Morbi, Gujarat | PM Modi meets family members of the victims who lost their lives in the bridge collapse incident that happened on October 30 pic.twitter.com/GgHXSdH50d
— ANI (@ANI) November 1, 2022
Amidst this crucial visit by the prime minister, the left-liberal gang resorted to all kinds of efforts to undermine the visit. Several left-liberal users and so-called journalists spread fake news by making fake claims about images of the victims. 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 as PM Modi’s visit came up in the hospital.
Contrary to insinuations from left-liberals, the man got his leg plastered on October 31 itself
However, this is not true. The patient had a plaster from earlier and was not something new. As shared by Twitter user Facts, the plaster was not done on November 1 as claimed by Vinod Kapri and others but actually existed from earlier than October 31.
This @vinodkapri has no work to do. He just spread fake news against PM and BJP all day.
— Facts (@BefittingFacts) November 1, 2022
another faker @abhijeet_dipke. pic.twitter.com/1CYMwL5iiW
The fact is evident from a video report by Lallantop dated October 31 where it can be seen that the patient had a plaster on his leg from early on. The same person can be seen in the video from 03:16 minutes onwards.
These tweets by so-called journalists and haters of the Prime Minister and the Bharatiya Janata Party underscore the firm resolve of the left-liberal gang to discredit and demean the government for any effort put in and policy executed. This is not the first time such fake news and misinformation has come up with the intention to malign the image of the prime Minister and the ruling dispensation.
The Morbi bridge collapse
On Sunday, October 30, 2022, the cable bridge over the Machchhu River in Morbi, Gujarat, collapsed, killing over 130 people as they all fell into the river. Screams of desperation replaced the earlier merriment as hundreds of bridge revellers perished in an instant. Rescue operations are currently being conducted in and around the river.
According to the reports, 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. 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.
