As the country struggles to cope with COVID-19 outbreak, several fake news are doing the rounds. One such news doing rounds yesterday was reports claiming that a woman from Uttar Pradesh threw her five children in the Ganga River because she could not find food during the ongoing lockdown.
The news was shared by Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan and activist Kavita Krishnan, which was then published by Outlook. But, Uttar Pradesh Police later clarified that the woman threw her five children into the Ganga after an argument with her husband.
The report published by Outlook was by a news agency IANS. The news agency quoted unnamed sources, claiming the woman had earlier said she and her children were not getting food due to the lockdown and money inflow had stopped because she was a daily wage earner. "Our priority is to rescue the children as soon as possible, we will carry out other investigations later," said a police official.
A police official later clarified that she took the step after fighting with her husband and reports saying she didn’t have food are not true. He further added that an action will take against those spreading fake news.
The incident took place in in Jahangirabad village under the Gopiganj police station area late on Saturday night. The woman, Manju Yadav, and her husband, Mridul Yadav, have been having troubles and were often fighting. On Saturday night after an argument with her husband, Manju allegedly threw her children Aarti, Saraswati, Maateshwari, Shivshankar and Keshav Prasad into the river. The bodies of Aarti and Saraswati, aged 12 and 10, have been found by divers and efforts are on to trace Maateshwari, Shivshankar and Keshav Prasad, police officials told PTI.
This is not the first time that a fake news about lockdown was reported. On April 8, news agency ANI deleted a tweet about Tablighi Jamat members. ANI UP had tweeted saying that those in sector 5 Harola, Noida, who came in contact with Tablighi Jamat members have been quarantined. The news agency deleted the tweet after Noida DCP said the news agency misquoted an official and are spreading fake news.
