In the light of severe floods in Telangana, a video through a post is being shared widely on social media which shows a Jeep being washed away in flood waters. The post claims that this video shows the incident of a missing reporter in Jagtial, Telangana. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: The video of a news reporter swept away in Jagtial, Telangana.
Fact: Zameer, who works as a reporter at the Telugu channel NTV, had travelled to the Bornapalli village to cover a story. Zameer was travelling in a car with a friend, when he was swept away by the swollen stream near the Ramajipeta village close to Bornapalli, on the evening of 12 July 2022. However, the video shared in the post dates back to 2020, and is most likely from Pakistan. Hence the claim made in this post is MISLEADING.
For context, we searched the web with relevant keywords about the missing claim made by the post and found several news articles here, here and here. A video about the same incident can be seen here. According to these reports, Zameer is a news reporter with NTV, a Telugu News Channel. On 12 July 2022, he went to cover the rescue of nine labourers stuck in Godavari flood waters by NDRF personnel at Bornapalli village. While returning to Jagtial, along with his friend, the car in which the duo was travelling, was washed away down the road by a powerful stream of flood water. Zameer was swept away, while his friend narrowly escaped. Rescue operations are underway to find Zameer.
While going through the comments in the post that shared the viral video, a user shared a YouTube link which apparently shows the same video posted on 07 September 2020. Upon further investigation, we found an even earlier version of the video uploaded to YouTube on 23 March 2020. Another video titled, “Suzuki Potohar Jeep Floats in Rain Flood Balochistan Village” also shows the same visuals.
Taking the cue from this, we searched for “ Suzuki Potohar Jeep” and found the similar images matching with that of Jeep from the video. However, news reports mentioned that the NTV reporter who was recently swept away in Jagtial was travelling in a Swift Dzire car. In other words, the video that shows a jeep being washed away has nothing to do with the NTV reporter.
This Wikipedia article mentions that Pak Suzuki Motors manufactured the Suzuki Potohar car. From this, it is evident that the Jeep belongs to Pakistan. Also, the number plate in the car reads – “BE 9119”. ( Black alpha numericals on yellow plate). Taking the cue from this, we found this Wikipedia article explaining different formats of number plates used for various vehicles. Also, we tried to find the number plates of the vehicles registered in Sindh province through OLX and a Facebook group.
Two formats of number plates are used in Sindh for Private four wheelers:
- “ ABC 123 ”
- “ AB 1234 ”
The Suzuki Potohar number plate format in the viral video matches the second category. But we couldn’t trace out the exact location and date of the incident. From all available evidence, the video is most probably from Pakistan.
To sum it up, an old video from Pakistan is being shared as visuals of TV reporter swept away during floods in Telangana.
