‘Child dies during Bharat bandh’: Fake news with video goes viral 

A screenshot of the viral video. 

The Congress and many opposition parties called for a Bharat bandh (nationwide shutdown), on September 10, to protest against the rising prices of petrol and diesel in India. During the shutdown, a video of a father carrying his dead girl, became viral, in which a father is seen holding his dead child and narrating his pain.

Many BJP supporters on social media, like a Twitter user who goes by the name of “Modified Renu” (@Renu_18 ), claimed that the child in the video died due to the absence of ambulance time during the, thus implicating the opposition for the death of the child.

Tears in my eyes..
This is what we are delivering
Who is responsible ?
Doesn't this video haunt u ppl who have called for a #BharatBandh ? pic.twitter.com/TrZfXhe3eS

— Mօɖɨʄɨɛɖ Rɛռʊ (@renu_18) September 10, 2018

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is among the 54,000 followers of @Renu_18. By the time of writing this, @Renu_18’s tweet with the fake news and video had been retweeted over 500 times.

The same story with the video was shared hundreds of times on Facebook as well by pro-government users. Many such users on both Twitter and Facebook claimed that the incident happened in Bihar after a road blockade stopped an ambulance on the way, during the shutdown.

What is the truth of the video?

When fact-checking and fake-news-busting website Alt News probed the video, it found that the video was indeed from Bihar, but was not related to the Bharat bandh.

The incident happened on September 7 in Bihar’s Jehanabad district in which a 2-year-old girl, Simran, died because of a snakebite. There are reports that due to the non-availability of an ambulance driver, Simran’s family members hired an autorickshaw to carry her to the hospital and she died on the way.

Even the district magistrate of Jehanabad had to clarify that the child didn’t die due to the opposition-called Bharat bandh to put an end to the rumourmongering on social media.

Father of the 2-yr-old girl told us that she was critical since last night only. When they were taking her to hospital today morning, she died midway: Alok Ranjan Ghosh, DM Jehanabad on reports that 2-yr-old patient died after the vehicle stuck in #BharathBandh protests. #Bihar pic.twitter.com/rb38D6uU67

— ANI (@ANI) September 10, 2018