Footage of Indian train conductor bribe unrelated to Hindu festival

Published on February 10, 2025 at 05:55
3 min read
By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India

As hundreds of millions of Hindu pilgrims travelled to attend the 2025 Kumbh Mela in India, a video surfaced in social media posts falsely claiming it showed a train conductor taking money from an old Hindu man on his way to the festival. The video was filmed in 2019, and an Indian Railways spokesperson told AFP the conductor in the clip took a bribe from a passenger who did not have a ticket.

"Make this viral so that he can be identified. Strict action should be taken against him because this conductor took away all the money from a poor passenger going to Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj," says the Hindi-language caption of an X post shared February 4, 2025.

The video shows a man in a black coat taking money from an elderly man before returning some of it.

Screenshot of the false post taken February 6, 2025

The clip surfaced as Indians from across the country travelled to Prayagraj to attend the Kumbh Mela -- a millennia-old Hindu festival of religious piety and ritual bathing where 400 million pilgrims are expected over six weeks (archived link).

The footage spread alongside similar claims on Facebook and X.

However, the clip was filmed in 2019 and is unrelated to the festival.

A reverse image search on Google found a screenshot of the false video published by Hindi news outlet ETV Bharat on July 26, 2019 (archived link).

The Hindi-language headline says: "Chandauli: Video of conductor extorting money from a railway passenger goes viral, conductor suspended."

Screenshot comparison of the false video (L) and the image published by ETV Bharat

ETV Bharat reported the conductor took money from the old man and kept it in his pocket before handing some of it back.

"A team of railway officials has been formed to investigate the video and an inquiry has been set up," the article says.

Rahul Jha, a spokesperson for Indian Railways, told AFP on February 6, 2025 that the conductor took the money from the passenger -- who did not have a ticket -- as a bribe.

The passenger then told the conductor he had no money left, so the conductor returned some cash.

"This video is from 2019 in which the conductor was suspended. It is being shared with a false claim linking it to Kumbh Mela," Jha said.

Other Indian outlets also covered the story with screenshots showing a similar scene (archived links here and here).

AFP has debunked other misinformation related to the festival here and here.

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