A video is being shared on social media claiming it as visuals of Sri Lankan demonstrators dumping their former minister along with his car into a lake. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of Sri Lankan demonstrators dumping their Ex-Minister along with his car into a lake.
Fact: The video shared in the post does show a recent incident of Sri Lankan demonstrators dumping their former minister Johnston Fernando’s car into the Beira lake. But Johnston Fernando was not inside the car during the incident. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
When we searched to check whether any such incident had taken place recently in Sri Lanka, we could find a few news reports that published the same video and reported it as the visuals of Sri Lankan protestors dumping their former minister’s car into a lake. They can be seen here and here. According to these reports, the angry Sri Lankan protestors pushed the ex-Sri Lankan minister’s car into the Beira lake amid protests against the continuing economic crisis.
Reporting the complete details of the incident, the Sri Lankan news website ‘Hiru News’ published an article on 09 May 2022. Following the attack of the ruling SLPP supporters, a large group of Sri Lankan protestors have reportedly dumped the backup vehicle of ex-minister Johnston Fernando into the Beira lake. The ‘Hiru News’ published the same video on their YouTube channel. A few other Sri Lankan news websites have also reported about this incident. They can be seen here, here and here. But it is nowhere reported that former minister Johnston Fernando was inside the car when people pushed it into the Beira lake. If ex-Sri Lankan minister Johnston Fernando was dumped alive into the lake, several media agencies would have reported the news.
To sum it up, Sri Lankan demonstrators did not dump their former minister along with his car into a lake.
