A video and a couple of photos are being shared on Facebook with a claim that 12 jawans who were travelling on a bus have died in a road accident in Meghalaya. Let’s try to analyze the claim made in the post.
Claim: 12 jawans have died in a bus accident in Meghalaya.
Fact: BSF authorities have clarified to FACTLY that all jawans are ‘safe and undergoing treatment at various hospitals’. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When searched on Google with the keywords ‘Meghalaya bus accident jawans’, several news articles with similar visuals were found in the search results. According to an article on the ‘Northeast Now News’ website, ‘one person died and 22 others including 20 BSF jawans received injuries as a bus fell down in a gorge at Umtyrra in East Jaintia Hills on Wednesday’. All the news agencies have reported about the incident but none of them reported about any BSF jawan succumbing to the injuries.
So, FACTLY has written to the authorities at BSF-Meghalaya to get a clarification on the viral posts. In his clarification to FACTLY, Randhir Ranjan (2IC – Operations, Ftr HQ BSF Meghalaya) wrote, ‘there was no casualty of any BSF jawan in the bus accident. However, 01 helper of the civil bus, which was carrying the BSF jawan, died in that accident. All jawans who sustained injuries during the accident are safe and undergoing treatment at various hospitals’.
Also, in an article by the ‘Northeast Now News’, it can be read that BSF jawans injured in the bus accident are being treated at North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS), Shillong.
To sum it up, no BSF jawan has died in Meghalaya’s bus accident. Injured jawans are receiving treatment.
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