(Trigger Warning: The content of this story can be triggering for some readers. Discretion is advised.)
An extremely graphic video of a person falling on a train platform, hitting an advertisement standee and dying as his body is severely mangled is being shared on social media to claim that it shows visuals of a train accident that took place near Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh, on Monday, 11 April.
As many as seven people were killed and several others suffered injuries in the Srikakulam incident after Kolkata-bound Konark Express ran over them as they stepped out of their train onto the adjoining tracks.
However, we found that the video in circulation is an old one and is not related to the mishap in Andhra Pradesh. While we were unable to find the context of the disturbing video, we found that the video has been on the internet since at least 2018.
CLAIM
The gory video is being shared with a text in Hindi that advises people to get down carefully from trains, mentioning the incident in Andhra Pradesh that claimed "seven innocent lives."
The video is being shared with the hashtags #trainaccident and #AndhraPradesh.
(Warning: Due to the graphic nature of the visuals we have not added any link to the video.)
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
Using keywords, we looked for reports related to the video on Google. The search led us to a video on social news aggregation website Reddit.
Here, we saw that the video was uploaded by user 'u/PlebOfTheSkies' three years ago, on 16 November, 2018.
The video was shared without any context.
WHAT HAPPENED IN ANDHRA PRADESH?
Seven people lost their lives and many others were injured after Kolkata-bound Konark Express ran over them near Srikakulam district in Andhra Pradesh.
The deceased passengers had stepped out of their train – the Secunderabad-Guwahati superfast express – after they saw smoke emanating from it. They had pulled the train's emergency chain to bring it to a halt.
According to The News Minute, the Andhra Pradesh government announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh to the families of the victims.
Vice President Venkaiah Naidu took to Twitter to express grief over the mishap and prayed "for the speedy recovery of the injured".
Clearly, an old video of a person's death on a railway platform is being shared, falsely linking it to the tragedy that took place near Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh.
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