Fact Check: Old Video Falsely Linked to Recent Tirupati Accident

On January 8, a tragic stampede occurred at lord Venkateshwara Swamy temple in Tirupati, Andra Pradesh, leaving at least 6 dead and over 40 injured. The incident happened when hundreds of devotees jostled for Vaikunta Dwara darshan tickets.
In this context, a video being circulated on social media shows a man picking a child covered by a white sheet on a stretcher and sitting on a pillion seat of a motorbike carrying the body. An ambulance can be seen beside the bike.
The accompanying claim alleges that the child lost his life in a recent stampede on Trimula Hills, and the father, unable to afford the ambulance, had to transport the body from the hospital on a bike.
The text in the video reads, “They asked rs 20,000 for an ambulance to transport a 12-year-old child who died in Teiputai govt hospital. The child’s father carries his son 90km due to the lack of money!

Fact Check

Our investigation at DFRAC found the claim to be false. As we conducted a reverse search of the keyframes of the video, we found that a video was published in 2022. A media report published on 26 April 2022, from the Deccan Herald, reported that “In an utterly inhumane incident, a syndicate of ambulance drivers at the government-run Ruia Hospital in Tirupati demanded over Rs 10,000 from a farm laborer to transport his dead child’s body to their village just 90 km away.”

Furthermore, we found a post by Andhra Pradesh Police and Andhra Pradesh State Govt clarifying the incident, stating that it did not occur during the recent stampede, but rather in 2022.

Conclusion

The claim shared on social media was found to be false by DFRAC, and the incident actually occurred in 2022. The video was misused to spread misinformation about the recent Tirupati accident. This highlights the need for fact-checking and verifying information before sharing it on social media.