A senior Congress leader was caught by social media users on Friday after she passed off an old image to claim that it as a recent one.
Archana Dalmia, who is the chairperson of Congress party’s Grievances Cell, on Friday took to social media to share an old image and insinuated that the image belonged to a recent incident in Damoh, Madhya Pradesh, where an infant son had tried to breastfeed on his mother, without realising that the kid’s mother had died.
The Congress leader claimed that the woman had died by the railway tracks of the MP’s Damoh and she was spotted by people in the state.
However, the Congress leader Archana Dalmia was soon fact-checked by the Railway Protection Force, who replied to her stating that the incident had occured in May 2017. The RPF, in its tweet said that the mother had died after accidentally faling from a moving train near Damoh. After due process, the deceased and child was handed over to her relatives, the RPF said while rejecting claims made by the Congress leader.
Archana Dalmia, who had tried to pass-off an old image as a recent one to target the BJP, however, had to delete her after getting caught peddling fake news.
The incident is nearly three years old
The heartbreaking images of an infant tried to breastfeed on her dead mother lying next to railway tracks in Damoh district of Madhya Pradesh, around 250 km from Bhopal, is an image of May 26, 2017.
According to the reports, the moving images were captured at Damoh when a 17-month-old was seen with his mother as she lied dead. The residents had found the woman’s body and the toddler around 6 am next to railway tracks. The woman had died after bleeding to death after being hit on the head, when she fell-off from the moving train. Fortunately, the child was not injured.
Archana Dalmia history of peddling fake images on social media
Archana Dalmia has a history of peddling fake, misleading images on social media to target the BJP and the Modi government. Just a few days back, in a similar incident, she was caught sharing images from Bangladesh to attack Modi government.
According to fact-checker Ankur Singh, the images shared by Archana Dalmia targetting the BJP, shockingly shared by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, is not even related to India. The image was shot in Bangladesh and is at least two years old.
Congress party resorts to false propaganda amidst coronavirus pandemic
At a time when the country is in the middle of a pandemic, the Congress party has been indulging in spreading blatant lies and misinformation on social media to score political goals.
Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala had earlier shared an image from Nepal as that of India to play politics over the misery of the poor. The Congress leader had posted the image of a woman, carrying a toddler on her back on Twitter. Surjewala’s tweet was accompanied by a politically motivated caption that read, “New India ka Saach!“
Earlier, the Dalit Congress had taken to social media to share 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. Sharing the image through the official Twitter handle, Dalit Congress had said that Modi govt should envisage the helplessness to the faces of these people and do something to help them.
In another incident, targetting Prime Minister Modi, the Congress party had shared an old image of Narendra Modi from a few years ago to make a misleading claim during the pandemic. The Congress party used a photograph of Prime Minister Modi in which measurements were being taken for his statue at the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.
The scene depicted in the photograph is from 2016 but the Congress party attempted to portray that it was captured in recent times when the country is suffering a grave crisis in the wake of the economic crisis unleashed by the coronavirus.
