Fact check

Man crossing tracks left empty cylinder as train came on; 2022 video viral with false communal conspiracy claim – Alt News

By Andrew McCollum

Days after the horrific Odisha train accident that claimed nearly 300 lives and left over 800 injured, a video that shows a ruptured gas cylinder being retrieved from railway tracks has gone viral. Social media users suggested that the incident might be related to a larger conspiracy to cause train accidents in multiple places in the country.

User @MithilaWaala claimed that Muslims threw a gas cylinder in front of a moving train. He further contended that the Balasore tragedy was part of a conspiracy to ‘defame the government’ which was the ‘target for the anti-India gang and Opposition’. (Archive)

User @ajaychauhan41 tweeted the clip and stated that a person threw a ‘filled gas cylinder’ before a moving train in Haldwani. The tweet garnered close to 4,000 retweets. (Archive)

BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay tweeted the video with the caption “The Mahabharata has started and in this crusade, those who are not with Dharma or are trying to appear neutral are actually supporting Adharma”. (Archive)

Verified accounts @Sudhir_mish and @SortedEagle also tweeted the video claiming that the incident was part of a conspiracy by the opposition targeting the government. (Archives 1, 2)

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The video is also viral on Facebook with the same claim. Media outlet Punjabi Kesari- Uttarakhand also shared the video with the caption “A person threw a filled gas cylinder in front of a moving train in Haldwani, a big accident was prevented” and linked it with the Odisha tragedy by using hashtags like #odisharailaccident.


The video is also viral on YouTube with the same claim.


Fact Check

We noticed that the Twitter handle for the Railway Protection Force for the Izzatnagar Division, North Eastern Railway, had refuted @ajaychauhan41’s claims of a conspiracy by saying that the said video was from July 5, 2022. They further stated that a case Government vs. Gangaram had been registered under Section 174, 153 of the Railway Act under Section-131/22.

The RPF inspector for Kathgodam Chandrapal Singh also tweeted the viral clip and clarified that it was an old video. He added that a complaint had been filed against Ganagaram and that the matter was still pending in court.

When Alt News reached out to Singh, he refuted the claim that the perpetrator was a Muslim. “The accused person’s person’s name is Gangaram and his father’s name is Biharilal. The incident happened on July 5, 2022. The accused had left his home to get his empty gas cylinder filled. While crossing a railway track, a train came on that track and Gangaram ran away to save himself, leaving the cylinder on the tracks. The RPF escort present on the train caught him after the train stopped”. According to Singh, the accused, a resident of Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh, used to work as a labourer in Gaula River in Uttarakhand and didn’t have a past criminal record. He was arrested and released on bail after around two months.

Singh also confirmed that the incident did not result in any accident or casualty, and that the cylinder was empty.

Hence, an old video of a cylinder being retrieved from railway tracks is being shared with the unfounded claim that a larger conspiracy targeting the government is at play. Some users gave the incident a communal spin, claiming that Muslims were responsible for throwing a filled gas cylinder on the tracks. In reality, a person named Gangaram was carrying an empty cylinder and crossing the tracks. As a train came on that line, he rushed to save himself leaving the cylinder on the tracks. This was an incident from July 5, 2022. The accused is a labourer from Uttarakhand with no past criminal record.

 

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Andrew McCollum