Old Video of Gas Cylinder on Railway Tracks Shared With False Communal Angle

An officer at Kathgodam's GRP station told The Quint that the clip is from July 2022 & rubbished the communal angle.

The video shows an incident dating back to July 2022 from Uttarakhand's Kathgodam area and the accused belongs to the Hindu community.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

A video of a man removing a partially damaged gas cylinder from railway tracks, while a train is seen idling has gone viral on social media.

The claim: The video is being shared to claim that it shows a recent incident from Uttarakhand's Haldwani.

• Some users have also shared it with a communal colour, insinuating that the cylinder was put there by a person from the Muslim community to cause an accident.

• The claim has gone viral following the deadly train accident that took place in Odisha on Friday, 2 June.

An archive of this tweet can be seen here.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

The Quint received several queries for this video's verification on its WhatsApp tipline as well.

(Archives of more claims on social media can be seen here, here, here, and here.)

Is it true?: No. The incident is not recent either.

• It dates back to 5 July 2022, when one Gangaram from Uttar Pradesh left an empty cylinder on railway tracks.

• The accused – who belongs to the Hindu community – was crossing the tracks to get his cylinder filled, but fled when he saw a train coming towards him, a source at Kathgodam's Government Railway Police (GRP) station told The Quint.

How did we find out?: Under one of the claims, we came across a reply by the North Eastern Railways' Railway Protection Force's (RPF) Twitter account.

The North Eastern Railways replied to one of the claims, saying that the video was old.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

• It mentioned that the video was an old one, dating back to 5 July 2022 and one Gangaram had been arrested in connection to the incident.

• We also came across a tweet by Kathgodam RPF Inspector Chandrapal Singh, where he stated that the video was old.

• Singh added that a case had been registered under sections 153 (endangering the safety of any person travelling in railway) and 174 (Obstructing running of train), and the matter was pending in court.

Taking a cue from these tweets, The Quint reached out to the Government Railway Police in Kathgodam, where an officer, on the condition of anonymity, confirmed several details about the video.

• "The video is from an incident that happened on 5 July 2022. A train called the Lucknow–Kathgodam Express (15043) runs through our area, and a man called Gangaram, son of Biharilal was arrested in connection to this case," they said.

• They added that a case (133/2022) had been registered against Gangaram – who hails from Uttar Pradesh's Pilibhit – said he was taking an empty cylinder for refilling across the tracks. When he saw the train coming, he abandoned the cylinder and ran to save himself, they said.

• Rubbishing the communal angle, they said that the accused belonged to the Hindu community and that he was released on bail in September after being arrested in July.

Conclusion: The video shows an incident dating back to July 2022, when one Gangaram abandoned an empty cylinder on railway tracks in Uttarakhand's Kathgodam area.

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