A nearly four year old image of a man carrying a body on a cycle rickshaw is being falsely linked to the current second wave of COVID-19 crisis in India. BOOM found that the image is from Uttar Pradesh, where a body of a woman was taken to hospital on a rickshaw for postmortem as the hospital authorities refused a mortuary van.
With 4.14 lakh fresh Covid cases, India has recorded the biggest single-day surge in the last 24 hours. As the country struggles with basic health infrastructure, including an ambulance shortage, three-wheelers called 'autos' are being turned into ambulances all over India, reported Business Insider.
Cartoonist Manjul shared this photo with a caption saying, "This is new India".
Filmmaker Avinash Das also shared the photo with a similar narrative.
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Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search on the photograph and found that the image is from 2017. We found the same photograph in a Punjab Kesari article published on September 1, 2017.
According to the report, the incident happened in Uttar Pradesh's Hamirpur District Hospital. The family of a deceased woman was forced to carry her body on a rickshaw as the hospital authorities refused to provide a mortuary van. A newly married woman committed suicide by hanging herself on August 31, 2017 evening at Gurdaha village in Uttar Pradesh. The local police sealed the corpse at night and kept it in the district hospital. The next morning, when the mortuary van was not provided from the district hospital even after waiting for a long time, her family was forced to carry the body on a rickshaw and took it to the post-mortem house for post mortem.
The same incident was reported on a Patrika article at that time.
We also found a video on Patrika Uttar Pradesh YouTube channel where the girl's family member can be seen narrating the incident.
Also Read: Old CCTV Footage Falsely Shared As Doctors Killing A COVID-19 Patient