A video of a rickshaw-puller breaking down in tears while his rickshaw is being seized by the Government officials is widely circulating on social media. Sharing this video, some social media users claim that the law in our country is only for poor people. In the post, it also claims that this incident took place in West Bengal. Let’s verify the claims made in the post.
Claim: Video of an Indian rickshaw-puller crying while his rickshaw is being seized by the government officials.
Fact: Person crying in the video is Fazlur Rahman, a rickshaw-puller from Dhaka in Bangladesh. Fazlur Rahman was crying as his rickshaw was seized under Dhaka Municipal corporation eviction drive on ‘05 October 2020’. This incident is not related to India. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On observing the video carefully, it can be found that the text displayed on the video is in the Bengali language. Also, at the 0.25 minute of the video, we could see the crying person speaking to the mike with the logo ‘Jamuna TV’. ‘Jamuna TV’ is a Bangladesh based news channel. On searching for information about this video using these keywords, we found the same visuals in a video posted by ‘Jamuna TV’ official YouTube channel on ‘06 October 2020’. In the video, it is described as the screaming of a rickshaw-puller. Similar visuals were found in a video posted by Bangladesh news portal ‘bdnews24.com’ on YouTube. In the description of the video, it is mentioned that the rickshaw-Puller Fazlur Rahman was seen crying in Dhaka’s Jigatala area after his vehicle was seized during DSCC’s eviction drive on ‘05 October 2020’. Article published by ‘bdnews24.com’ news website about this incident can be seen here.
Fazlur Rehman lost his Job amid the coronavirus pandemic. He bought the battery-powered rickshaw for his livelihood by taking a loan of 80,000 Bangladeshi Taka. Recently, the Dhaka South City Corporation(DSCC) banned the movement of motorised, engine-driven and battery-run rickshaws and vans. Fazlur Rehman’s rickshaw was seized in the eviction drive conducted by DSCC on ‘05 October 2020’. More articles reporting this incident can be seen here and here.
When this crying video of Fazlur Rahman went viral on social media, few donors came forward in support of Fazlur Rahman. According to the article published by ‘Dhaka Tribune’, Bangladesh based E-Commerce company Shwapno donated two rickshaws to Fazlur Rahman. It is reported in ‘Times Now’ news article that a stranger donated rickshaws to the two other rickshaw-pullers along with Fazlur Rahman.
To sum it up, the rickshaw-puller crying video shared in the post is from Bangladesh, not related to India.
