The video depicting police personnel, army jawans, railway staff, and passengers collectively pushing to move a train has gained significant traction on various social media platforms. It is being shared alongside a political assertion, targeting the government, stating that this represents a novel method of initiating train movement. In this article, let’s investigate the veracity of the video and shed light on the truth behind its contents.
Claim: Visuals of Police personnel, army jawans, railway staff, and passengers collectively pushing to move a train.
Fact: The visuals are related to the recent train accident, wherein, a portion of Howrah-Secunderabad Falaknuma Express caught fire causing damage to a few coaches. Responding immediately, the police, army and the passengers detached the adjacent coaches physically, to control the spread of fire to other coaches. South Central Railway and the concerned authorities have clarified the same. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
While the video indeed depicts police, army, and passengers collectively exerting force to move the train, it is important to note that contrary to the claim, the effort is not to physically start the train but to detach the coaches from others which caught fire, following a train accident.
Google search with relevant keywords yielded multiple news reports that reported the news. As per these reports, the visuals are from the recent fire accident that took place on Falaknuma Express early morning on 07 July 2023.
On 07 July 2023, a portion of the Howrah-Secunderabad Falaknuma Express caught fire causing damage to a few coaches. To reduce the impact of the damage, the rear coaches were isolated to prevent the fire from spreading to other coaches. It was manually removed by railway staff and local police. The viral visuals shared in the post depict the collective efforts by the police, army, and passengers. News agencies that reported the incident can be read here and here.
However, these visuals went viral on social media with different claims similar to the one in the viral post. Dismissing such claims, the Railway spokesperson and the South-central railway denied the claims and clarified that the visuals show a conscious decision by Railway Personnel & Local Police to detach the rear coaches to avoid the further spread of fire. Thus, it is evident that visuals are being shared with a political claim attributing to the current government while in reality, they do not show an attempt to start the train.
To sum it up, visuals of detaching coaches from accident-bound Falaknuma express are being shared with a misleading claim.
