Claim
two days after the launch of Vandhe Bharat express there was a incident of stone pelting reported on the brand new Vande Bharat Express near Samsi Kumarganj of Kathia Division of the Indian Railways. The impact caused a crack in the glass shield on the door.
Rating
Explanation
Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off West Bengal’s first Vande Bharat express between Howrah and New Jalpaiguri on 30, December 2022. On 2, January 2023, stone pelting had been taken place on the Vande Bharat express at Kumarganj station. The same incident repeated on 3, January 2023 in the Darjeeling district. It was found that the glass surface of the windows of coach no. 3 and 6 were damaged due to stone pelting.
In this context, a set of images are being circulated on social media platforms with the claim that the images are related to Vande Bharat express stone pelting incident that happened on 2, January 2023 at Kumarganj station. The set of images contains blood-stained train seats and an injured person. These posts can be seen here, here, and here.
The Times Now article reported the incident of stone pelting and used the same viral image of the blood-stained seat in its article. The archived link can be seen here.
What is the truth?
One of the images in the posts has the picture of ‘Howrah – Purulia’ express. By taking a cue from this image when searching with relevant keywords on Twitter, we found that the images are unrelated to the Vande Bharat stone pelting incident.
A Twitter page named ‘Iron Heart’ posted a set of images mentioning as a similar incident of stone pelting happened in Purulia express near Pakuria station. The viral image matches one of the images in the post.
A similar situation happened today in Purulia Express (12827) near pakuria station, one passenger injured. https://t.co/5zco6R2ARB pic.twitter.com/ocMzwQ3URL
— IronHeart (@iron_heart9) January 2, 2023
Another Twitter account ‘Pranabesh Sen’ posted two pictures from the Purulia express incident and quoted to check his Facebook page for details.
এতদিন শুনে এসেছি ট্রেনে পাথর ছোঁড়ার গপ্প। কাল ১.০১.২৩ বছরের প্রথম দিনে এই দুর্ঘটনার সাক্ষী থাকলাম । দুর্ঘটনা না বলে ক্রাইম এবং অব্যবস্থা বললেই ভালো হবে।
details in my FB post, see pics#IndianRailways #IRCTC #bankura #purulia #TRAIN #Govt @AshwiniVaishnaw @RailMinIndia pic.twitter.com/IjG9NRX625— PRANABESH SEN (@pranabesh_sen) January 2, 2023
We found his Facebook post dated 1, January 2023 detailing the incident with more images, and these match the viral images that are being circulated. It is mentioned that he was present on the train, Purulia Express (12827) during the incident. He explained that the glass window broke due to stone pelting from outside the train before crossing Paskura at 5:48 pm leaving a passenger injured.
Conclusion
It is found from our search that a few of the images doing rounds on the internet claiming as Vande Bharat stone pelting incident is not true. The pictures are related to a similar incident of stone pelting that happened on 1, January 2023 in Howrah – Purulia express.
