Currency Notes Strewn in Indore to Spread COVID-19? It’s Fake News
It was actually an accident and not a deliberate attempt by any community or an individual to spread COVID-19.
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CLAIM
Two videos of multiple currency notes strewn on the road are being shared with the claim that an incident happened in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, where these notes were thrown on the road by a person.
While one of these viral videos shows police officials picking up these notes with rods and sticks, the other shows a number of locals walking around a road looking at these notes. The latter also has a man saying that the person who threw the notes was a Muslim.
The videos were also viral on social media, with claims that these notes were thrown by a person with the intention of spreading coronavirus. On Twitter, a user claimed that this was “note jihad”, insinuating that this was the action of a Muslim.
The videos were also viral on Facebook with a similar claim.
A Facebook user also shared the video without a direct communal angle but claimed that it had been thrown by a person on purpose.
The Quint received multiple queries from its readers to verify the two videos.
TRUE OR FALSE?
While the incident is actually from Indore, the notes were not thrown on the road with any intention of spreading coronavirus. It was actually an accident and not a deliberate attempt by any community to spread COVID-19.
WHAT WE FOUND
We noticed that some of the claims we saw said that the incident had happened in Indore. We looked up news reports about it, and found that the incident had actually happened, when the locals in an area of Indore called Hari Nagar found notes of multiple denominations scattered on the road. A report by NDTV further said that police officials were informed and they came and collected the notes with precautionary notes and were investigating the matter.
The Quint then reached out to police officials in Indore to find out more about the incident.
Speaking to The Quint, Rajeev Bhadoria, in-charge of Hira Nagar police station in Indore, said that the notes had not been not thrown on the road on purpose or with any bad intentions and that the rumours doing the rounds about the incident were wrong.
Bhadoria told us that their investigation had shown that the notes had actually fallen out of an Indane Gas delivery personnel’s pocket in Indore’s Khatipura area while he was on his way doing deliveries on a cycle. He added that this had been confirmed through CCTV footage from the area.
Further, he told us that the police had also spoken to the delivery personnel, who had been identified as Ram Narendra Yadav, who explained to the police how the accident had happened with the notes.
Bhadoria added that the matter was cleared up on 17 April, a day after the incident took place and that the notes had been handed over to the man as well.
Therefore, the claims that the notes were thrown on the road by a member of a minority group or any person with an intention to spread coronavirus is false.
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