A video of a girl jostling with an elderly woman to give water to a man lying on the ground is doing the rounds on social media. Twitter user Sandeep Thakur who claims to be a ‘Swayam Sevak’ and head of BJP Delhi social media cell has posted the video with the message, “Strikes won’t make a difference. President’s rule along with the deployment of the army in West Bengal will make the difference”. This tweet garnered over 1,400 retweets at the time of writing the article.
बात धरणो से नहीं बनेगी बात तो राष्ट्रपति शासन लगाकर बंगाल को सेना के हाथ में देकर बनेगी। pic.twitter.com/RkWWL97yXy
— Sandeep Thakur (@thakurbjpdelhi) May 4, 2021
Another Twitter user Raka Singh Lodhi, whose bio boasts association with the BJP, posted the video with the same narrative.
Several Facebook users also shared the video with an identical message. A post by one Umesh Nanda has garnered more than 300 shares so far.
Video from Andhra Pradesh
Alt News broke the video into multiple keyframes and reverse searched one of the keyframes on the Russian search engine Yandex. We found that the video is NOT from West Bengal but Andhra Pradesh. On May 5, India Today reported, “Asiranaidu (50), a native of Koyyanapeta in G Sigadam Mandal of Srikakulam district, breathed his last in front of his daughter and wife. The 50-year-old, who worked as a labourer in Vijayawada, and his family had tested positive for Covid-19. Amid fears of lockdown, they decided to return to their native village.”
According to the report, when the family reached the village on Sunday, the villagers who learnt about their sickness asked them to isolate in a thatched hut located in an open field away from the village. Later, the father’s condition deteriorated and he died in front of his daughter and wife. In the video, the daughter can be seen weeping loudly as she struggles with her own mother to try and give water to her dying COVID positive father.
A video from Andhra Pradesh where a teenager tried to give water to her COVID positive father while her mother tries to stop her, fearing for her daughter’s life, has been falsely linked to post-poll violence in West Bengal.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
