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Unrelated Images Viral As Damage To Vande Bharat Express After Stone Pelting Incident
West Bengal, 9 Jan 2023 1:32 PM GMT
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In the context of the stone pelting incident on Vande Bharat, which took place on January 2, a set of images are being widely circulated across social media showing damage to the train coach.
The newly inaugurated Vande Bharat Express was halted in its tracks, allegedly following a stone pelting incident that took place in West Bengal on the C14 compartment of the train on January 8, 2023. Due to this, Vande Bharat Express's operations were disrupted, and the train was compelled to halt for 10 minutes at Bolpur railway station. However, according to a report of India Today dated January 9, 2023, the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) issued a statement and mentioned that no such incident occurred.
"It was a rumor as some passengers claimed that they heard a sound. The sound was not due to stone pelting, and in fact, the scratch on the window was not due to stone pelting," the NFR said.
Before that, on January 2, just days after PM Modi inaugurated the Vande Bharat Express, stones were pelted at the C-13 coach of the train in Malda, West Bengal. On January 3, stones were pelted again, this time damaging the C-3 and C-6 coaches of the train traveling to New Jalpaiguri. After the stone pelting incident went viral, The Railway Protection Force (RPF) arrested three minors from Bihar's Kashganj for pelting stones at the Howrah-New Jalpaiguri Vande Bharat Express last week. In the investigation, it was revealed that the stone pelting incident took place at the Mangurjan in Bihar's Kishanganj district. West Bengal CM Mamta Banerjee termed it a systematic "defamation campaign" against West Bengal and mentioned that strong action would be taken against those attempting to spread fake news. Beliaghata police station also summoned reporters from several media organisations for misreporting the incident. Click here to read the report.
In the context of the stone pelting incident on Vande Bharat, which took place on January 2, a set of images are being widely circulated across social media showing damage to the train coach.
Claim:
The media outlet News18 shared images from a damaged train coach claiming they were from one of the stone-pelting incidents on the Vande Bharat Express.
This broadcast was shared by Bengal BJP state president Dr. Sukanta Majumdar with the claim, "Stone pelted on Vande Bharat train in West Bengal. The train was inaugurated on December 30 by Hon'ble PM @narendramodi ji. Is this the reply to Jai Shri Ram, CM @MamataOfficial? Shame!
On social media, users circulated the same four sets of images with the claim that some stone pelters attacked the Vande Bharat Express about 25 kilometers from Malda station in West Bengal.
The same image is seen in the thumbnails of media outlets such as the Telegraph and Times Now News which passed off the images as from the recent stone-pelting incident on the Vande Bharat Express.
Fact Check:
The Logical Indian Fact-Check team verified the viral claim and found it misleading. The viral images are not of the Vande Bharat train but from a stone-pelting incident that occurred on Purulia Express.
We conducted a reverse image search on the viral images, which threw up an image shared by Facebook user 'Jangalmahal,' who noted in his caption that the photos showed an incident related to Purulia Express. The caption credited the post to a user called Pranabesh Sen.
We scanned Facebook and came across Pranabesh Sen's Facebook profile. In a post dated January 1, 2023, Sen shared the same four images with a statement where Sen wrote about how stones were pelted from outside, which led to injuries to a 30-year-old man on the Purulia Express. In his post, Sen highlighted concerns such as the alleged unavailability of a first aid box and the absence of the Railway Police Force to register a complaint, among others.
We compared the images from the viral posts on social media and the post shared by Pranabesh Sen.
We then scanned vlogs uploaded to YouTube to compare the visuals shared across social media to the visuals from the interior of the Vande Bharat Express seen in vlogs. We noticed a distinct difference in the interiors of these trains.
Conclusion:
Even though the Vande Bharat Express train was pelted with stones in West Bengal, the viral images are not of that train but of a stone-pelting incident that occurred on Purulia Express. The Logical Indian could not ascertain when the Purulia express incident occurred, but we found that the images were not from the Vande Bharat Express as was claimed.
If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.
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