Two unrelated incidents from two different quarantine centers have been clubbed to mislead people - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
May 26, 2020
A video of a man kicking food is being shared widely on social media with a claim that Shiraj Ahmed & Bhujouli Kurd have refused to eat food cooked by a Dalit woman at a quarantine centre. Let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Shiraj Ahmed & Bhujouli Kurd refusing to eat food cooked by a Dalit woman at a quarantine center.
Fact: The video was taken at a quarantine center in Bihar. The men in the video have asked the women cooks to serve them food without following social distancing. When the women denied, they kicked the food placed on the bench. There is no Dalit angle in the incident. An FIR was filed on Pankaj, Manoj, and Ashok. In another incident, Shiraj Ahmed, a resident of Bhujouli Khurd village (Uttar Pradesh), has refused to eat food cooked by a Dalit woman at a quarantine center in the village. So, the video of an incident in Bihar is being shared with the claim related to an incident in Uttar Pradesh. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
Incident 1:
When the screenshots of the video were run through the Google Reverse Image Search, an article by ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ was found in the search results. In the article, it can be read that the incident in the video took place at a quarantine center in Bihar. When the women cooks went to serve them food, the migrants (Pankaj Kumar Rai, Manoj Kumar Rai, and Ashok Sahne) have asked the women to serve them food without following social distancing. When the women denied, they kicked the food placed on the bench. The same can be read in the ‘Jagran’ article.
In an article by ‘ABP Bihar’, it can be read that an FIR has been filed in the incident and also, the pictures of the complaint can be found. There is a mention of the bad quality of food in the ‘ABP Bihar’ article, but no Dalit angle was mentioned in any of the news reports.
Incident 2:
When searched with the keywords given in the claim, many news articles related to the incident were found in the search results. In the ‘Outlook’ article, it can be read that ‘a 35-year-old man (Siraj Ahmad) has been booked by the police for refusing to eat food at a quarantine center on the ground that it had been cooked by a Dalit. Siraj Ahmad, a native of Bhujouli Khurd village under Khadda police station in Kushinagar district, had returned from Delhi on March 29, and was staying at the quarantine center at the village primary school along with other four people’. The FIR related to the incident can be read here.
To sum it up, two unrelated food incidents from two different quarantine centers have been clubbed to mislead people.
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