Old Clip From Punjab Shared as COVID Patients ‘Killed’ in B’luru
The footage is from Patiala and dates back to 2020 when hospital staff thrashed a patient suffering from depression.
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A compilation of three different videos is being circulated on WhatsApp with one of them showing a woman standing at Bengaluru’s Oxford Hospital claiming that the hospital is “killing” coronavirus patients. The other two videos of patients allegedly being thrashed have been stitched together in an apparent reference to the woman’s claims.
However, we found that the three videos are not related to each other. The news bulletin in which the woman can be seen levelling allegations against the hospital is from April 2021, while the CCTV footage is from Patiala in Punjab and dates back to 2020. Further, the third clip could also be traced to 2020 but we have not been able to verify that.
CLAIM
The viral video is being used to claim that hospital authorities are “purposely killing” COVID patients as they are allegedly getting “money from the government from each casualty.”
The video begins with a news bulletin and is followed by two videos showing patients being thrashed.
(Note: Due to the distressing nature of the visuals, The Quint is not displaying the video in the story.)
The Quint received multiple queries on the claim being made in the viral video on its WhatsApp tipline.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On looking carefully, we noticed the location stamp in the viral video suggesting that it’s from Patiala, Punjab.
We then searched on Google with keywords ‘Patiala CCTV patient killing’ and came across a Tribune article from August 2020 that carried the viral visuals.
The article mentioned that two employees of a private hospital in Patiala had been arrested for allegedly beating a patient who was suffering from depression. Gurdeep Singh and Mohammed Rahul, staff members of Prime Hospital had been identified as the accused in the matter.
It is evident that the viral clip is from an old incident that took place in Patiala and has been revived as a recent incident.
WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER TWO CLIPS?
Since the video that is being circulated on WhatsApp is a combination of three clips, let us analyse the remaining two videos.
Regarding the news bulletin that is played at the beginning of the viral video, we found that it was uploaded on a regional channel called NewsFirst Kannada on 22 April and is from Oxford Hospital in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
The woman seen in the viral video starts speaking at 02:40 minutes of the YouTube video and the part included in the viral video can be heard from 03:55 minutes.
In the news bulletin, she alleged that the hospital is not providing proper care and treatment to the patients. “When a person dies, the hospital receives Rs 8 lakh. Seven people are being killed daily. They are not dying. They are being killed. Please save people. I lost my father. Let’s not lose other people’s lives please,” she further claimed.
Regarding the third video, it was being shared in 2020 as well and we could trace it back to a YouTube channel, which uploaded the video in May 2020.
The video was also published on a Bangladesh-based website in an article that was published last year. The Quint has not been able to independently verify where the video is from and what is happening in it, but what we know is that it is not a recent one.
Further, Karnataka Police’s fact-checking website also published an article on the viral video clarifying that it is not from Karnataka.
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