New Delhi. A picture of a loco pilot holding an umbrella aboard a railway engine was widely shared on social media with the claim that rainwater was leaking from the roof of the Vande Bharat Express ahead of its maiden voyage in Kerala. Although it was not so because that picture is from 2017.
The picture circulated on social media a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off Kerala’s first Vande Bharat Express from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod on April 26. It has been viewed thousands of times and shared widely. PTI’s ‘Fact Check’ revealed that on April 25, when the train was standing at Kannur, water leaked from an ‘AC vent’ of one of its coaches and the railway authorities got it repaired on April 26.
There was no leakage of water in the locomotive. Subsequent investigation revealed that the image shared on social media was a screenshot of a video made in Jharkhand in 2017. In a post on Twitter on April 26, it was written, “Modi’s ‘Vande Bharat’ is a problem like Modi. On the first day of inauguration, rain water started seeping through the roof of Vande Bharat in Kerala. The picture speaks for itself.
The post has been viewed over 67,000 times in two days, garnering over 1,700 likes and over 800 retweets. Multiple users shared the same image with the same claim on Twitter and Facebook. PTI’s Fact Check team started its investigation with ‘Google reverse image search’ regarding the photo. The team found an old video in a tweet posted by journalist Sucheta Dalal on August 9, 2017, in which the same loco pilot was seen holding an umbrella to save himself from water seeping into the engine.
The team then performed a Google search with specific words, which led to a news item published in the newspaper ‘The Indian Express’ on August 11, 2017, with the headline, “‘Train driver uses umbrella to protect control panel from dripping water’ Caught, video viral. ””””’ The news also included tweets by the journalist and a response posted by the Ministry of Railways on August 9, 2017. It said it was a faulty engine that was being pulled by another engine.
In the next part of the investigation, Fact Check team searched Google for the news of water leakage in the recently launched Vande Bharat Express in Kerala. The team found a news item on the Times Now website titled, “Water leaks in new Kerala Vande Bharat Express at Kannur, repaired.” A Times Now news item published on April 26 read, “Railway officials have informed us that it was not a major leak but only a leak inside a coach.
The leak was noticed on Wednesday morning, after which railway technical experts reached the spot and the problem of leakage was rectified. The image was a screenshot of a video made in 2017 of a malfunctioning engine. If readers feel that any claim or social media post needs fact-checking, they can contact WhatsApp number +91-8130503759 to share it with PTI fact check team.
Inputs From: Telegraph India
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