Journalist Rana Ayyub, historian William Dalrymple, official Twitter handle of JNU Students’ Union and others on Monday peddled a picture of coronavirus lockdown violators as migrant labourers. However, the picture was soon deleted.
"Punishing the labourers for leaving the lockdown. Cry my beloved country," tweeted Rana Ayyub. While historian William Dalrymple wrote, "Punishing migrant workers for leaving lockdown."
However, it was found out that it was a PTI picture from 24, 2020. The photo wasn't of migrant labourers being punished, instead police personnel were punishning offenders flouting lockdown guidelines, imposed in wake of coronavirus pandemic, at Chakeri area of Kanpur, on March 24, 2020.
Screengrab/The Hindu
Alt News, a fact-checking website, contacted PTI photographer Rahul Shukla who got the photograph shot by a colleague on March 24. He said that the picture was shot at around 1:30 pm. They even checked the PTI photo gallery and confirmed that the image was indeed shot on March 24.
Earlier, hundreds of migrants, a majority of whom were daily wage workers started rushing on foot to their native places from different states amidst the uncertainty over their livelihood following the announcement of a 21-day nationwide lockdown by PM Modi last week in order to contain the spread of novel coronavirus.
Meanwhile, 146 new COVID-19 cases were registered in the country. Total number of COVID-19 positive cases rose to 1397 in India (including 1238 active cases, 124 cured/discharged/migrated people and 35 deaths) on Tuesday, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Globally, the coronavirus pandemic has claimed 39,044 lives so far and has infected 803,541. Italy has recorded the most (11,591) deaths so far, while the most number of positive cases were seen in the United States of America (164,665).
