Old video of gas cylinder on train track in Uttarakhand shared with communal angle

By: Rohith Gutta
June 8 2023

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Context
In the aftermath of the tragic Odisha three-train collision that killed around 288 people, a Twitter user named ‘Izlamic Terrorist’ with the handle ‘@raviagrawal3’ shared a video on June 5 claiming that a “madrasa chap” threw a gas cylinder in front of a moving train in Haldwani, Uttarakhand, and that the train accident in Odisha’s Balasore was a conspiracy hatched by "Jihadis."

"Madrasa chap" is a derogatory phrase used to describe Muslims who attend madarasas for their schooling and education. The user went on to claim that Muslims are "killing by conspiring against railways." This video has more than 56,000 views and 1,500 retweets. 

The video shows a stationary train on the tracks while a person retrieves a red mini gas cylinder from underneath it. At the end of the video, a woman speaking in Hindi, says, “This was near Aamla Gate on the outskirts of Haldwani. My relatives stay there. They have sent me this video." 

We found that the video is from 2022. The person who left the mini gas cylinder on the track was caught immediately, and a case was filed against him. There was no angle of sabotage in the incident, police have confirmed.

In fact
Following the woman’s quote in the video that the incident was near Haldwani, we looked for train mishap videos in Uttarakhand and videos of gas cylinders on tracks. It led us to a video on YouTube uploaded by a channel named ‘Railway Update’ on July 5, 2022, with the title written in Hindi, “A gas cylinder thrown in front a moving train."

A frame-by-frame look at the video showed that the train had 'Izzatnagar' written on it. We contacted the Izzat Nagar Railway Division Public Relations Office, who redirected us to Kathgodam's Railway Protection Officer Inspector Chandrapal Singh. Kathgodam is Haldwani's neighboring station. Singh confirmed that the video was taken between Haldwani and Kathgodam. 

The railway police official told us that the man involved in the incident was not Muslim but a Hindu man named Gangaram, and he did not place the gas cylinder on the tracks on purpose. Singh told us that on July 5, Gangaram was trying to cross the railway track to refill his gas cylinder when he saw the Lucknow-Kathgodam Express approaching from the other direction. He left the cylinder on the tracks in a hurry, in order to run away from the coming train. The train halted when it hit the cylinder. 

Singh said Gangaram was arrested for endangering the safety of persons traveling by train and obstructing the running of the train. The case is currently undergoing trial. When asked whether a Muslim man was involved in the incident, Singh denied the claim.

The Nainital police also clarified in a Facebook post dated June 6 that the incident in the video was from July 5, 2022, and that the person responsible was arrested immediately. They added that sharing such videos can cause "disturbance in society."  

Verdict
This is an old video from 2022. A man named Gangaram abandoned the gas cylinder while trying to cross the railway track, and was arrested. Therefore, we mark this claim as false.