False posts blaming 'Muslim railway employee' for deadly India train crash share unrelated photo
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on June 14, 2023 at 11:25
- 3 min read
- By Uzair RIZVI, AFP India
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"The person responsible for the death of nearly 300 passengers and more than 900 injured in the Odisha train accident, which took place near Bahanaga railway station is Mohammed Sharif Ahmed, who was the staff member in charge at the time of the crash," reads a Hindi-language tweet posted on June 5, 2023. "He absconded after an enquiry was called."
The post -- showing a man photographed in what appears to be a control station -- has been retweeted more than 2,500 times.
Mohammed is a common Muslim name after the Prophet.
While a final report into the cause of the triple train crash near Bahanaga station -- which is also known as Bahanaga Bazaar station -- in Balasore district in Odisha state has not been released yet, local media quoting preliminary investigations have pointed to human error connected to the signalling system (archived link).
The same photo has also been shared alongside a similar false claim on Twitter here and here as well as on Facebook.
Comments left by viewers of the posts indicate they were misled.
"This is the reality of Muslims, they backstab," one user commented.
Another said, "Never ever trust a Muslim."
Misused photo
But there is no employee called Mohammed Sharif Ahmed working at Bahanaga railway station, according to JK Nayak, an official at the terminal.
"The man in the photo is not an employee of this railway station," he told AFP.
Local media reports here and here also identify the officer-in-charge at the time of the accident as SB Mohanty (archived links here and here).
A Google reverse search of the photo shared in the posts has also revealed it was posted here on a blog by a Delhi-based photographer called Vikas Chander (archived link).
In the post, Chander does not identify the man in the photo but says it was taken in 2004 at Borra Guhalu railway station in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh (archived link).
The photo shows the name "Borra Guhalu" indicated on the control.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the false posts (left) and the photo posted on Chander's blog with the name of the place highlighted by AFP (right):
Indian Railways spokesperson Jayaram identified the man in the photo as Ratnakara Rao taken in 2004 when he worked as a station master at Borra Guhalu station of the Waltair division.
"He is not at all related to Bahanaga bazaar station or that accident," Jayaram said in a statement sent to AFP.
AFP had earlier debunked false posts claiming there was a mosque near the site of the train crash.
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