2017 Photo From Bihar Wrongly Shared as State of ‘Yogi’s Uttar Pradesh'

The photo shows a 2017 incident in Purnea, Bihar where a father-son duo carried a corpse on a bike.

The photograph shows a 2017 incident in Purnea, Bihar.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

A photograph of two men on a motorcycle, with a woman's corpse between them is being shared on social media to claim that it shows the situation in Uttar Pradesh, where the men were forced to carry the woman's corpse on their two-wheeler due to the unavailability of ambulances.

The claim comes ahead of elections in the state starting 10 February.

But we found that the photograph was old, and not from Uttar Pradesh. The photograph is five years old, and was taken in Bihar's Purnea, where a family was forced to carry the woman's corpse home on a motorcycle for its last rites after being denied a mortuary van.

CLAIM

The photo is being shared with a Hindi text on it, which translates to "In Yogi Adityanath's Uttar Pradesh, father-son duo carry a corpse on their motorbike due to the unavailability of ambulances."

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

We found that the post had been shared with the same claim in 2021 as well.

Archived versions of more claims on social media can be accessed here, here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

First, we cropped the image to exclude the text and then conducted a reverse image search on the photograph. This led us to reports carrying the same photograph from 2017.

We found an article dated 4 June, 2017 published by Hindustan Times, that discussed an incident in Purnea, Bihar.

The photo is from 2017.

(Source: Hindustan Times/Altered by The Quint)

The report identified the elderly man as Shankar Sah, a poor labourer from Purnea who was told to make arrangements for taking his deceased wife Susheela's body home from the district's government hospital.

Sah, unable to afford a private ambulance, took his son Pappu's aid to carry her corpse back home on a motorbike

As per an Indian Express report, Purnea civil surgeon MM Wasim called the incident "unfortunate," adding that the district's Sadar hospital did not have a mortuary van and everyone was asked to make their own arrangements.

The Quint had reported on multiple instances of this kind in 2017, across Bihar and Odisha. You can watch the report here.

Evidently, a five-year-old photo from Purnea, Bihar is being wrongly shared on social media as the condition of Uttar Pradesh under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at [e-mail] and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)