Every time Prime Minister Narendra Modi shows the green flag on the new launch of the Vande Bharat train, a hoax starts orbiting cyberspace. This time was no different. Recently, PM Modi flagged off Kerala’s first Vande Bharat Express from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod. As soon as the train went off, the image of the train driver using an umbrella in the crew compartment went viral with the claim of Vande Bharat leakage.
A Twitter user, Dr Namrata Datta, posted an image of the crew compartment of a train and wrote, “Narendra Modi, you are incapable of making anything right. The newly inaugurated Vande Bharat Train has a leaky roof. This is a picture worth a thousand words.”
The image posted by Dr Namrata Datta influenced many others to come out with the same claim.
A supposed news and media agency, Network 24*7 Twitter handle, wrote, “It was just yesterday. Rainwater started seeping through the roof of the driver’s cabin in Kerala on the first day of Modi’s “Vande Bharat” inauguration.
Another Twitter user, Krish Nair, posted the image with the same claim.
After Dr Namrata Datta’s claim that the crew compartment was leaking in the newly inaugurated Vande Bharat, many others shared the same image with the same claim. You can find it here, here, and here.
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So, is it really true that the crew and driver’s compartment of the Vande Bharat train started leaking as soon as it was flagged off from Thiruvananthapuram? Let’s find out the truth.
Fact Check
A reverse image search of the image showed that this incident was from the year 2017. We found the news article from India Times describing the event in the image: “The driver was seen piloting the locomotive holding an umbrella in one hand.”
The reverse image search also led us to the tweet of journalist Suchita Dalal, tweeted in August 2017. Suchita, in her tweet, questioned the safety of the railway and asked the then-railway minister to fix the problem without taking action against the whistleblower.
Furthermore, the news report and the tweet from which the image was derived are from 2017, whereas the inaugural Vande Bharat Express was launched in 2019. Hence, a six-year-old picture of a train driver using an umbrella is wrongly associated with the recent Vande Bharat Express leakage.
The Ministry of Railways has tweeted pictures of Vande Bharat from the day when the train was flagged off in Thiruvananthapuram.
We also examined photographs of the Vande Bharat driver’s compartment to clear up any confusion. Looking at the image, it was clear that the viral image could not be the Vande Bharat Express, as stated by Twitter users.
However, our investigation didn’t stop there, with the relevant keyword search we found out that mainstream media reported one incident of leakage in the sealing of the Vande Bharat Express.
According to the Times Now there was a minor leakage glitch in the sealing of the AC vent of Vande Bharat that was recently flagged from Thiruvananthapuram. Despite that, the shortcoming was fixed quickly, and the train started running towards its destination.
Furthermore, the leakage was due to the heavy rain that lashed out in Kannur. The glitch was in a passenger’s coach, not in a crew compartment, as widely circulated.
Therefore, the viral image circulated by Dr Namarata Dutta and many others is misleading. It had nothing to do with the recent malfunction in the Vande Bharat Express.
Vande Bharat Express is the first of its kind in terms of speed, facilities, and passenger convenience. Additionally, the train has state-of-the-art security systems and a GPS-based audio-visual passenger information system. On the contrary, every time people like Dr Namrata Datta demoralize and mock the hard work of Indian citizens, they will end up embarrassing themselves.
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| Claim | The newly inaugurated Vande Bharat Express train started leaking in the crew compartment. |
| Claimed by | Dr Namratta Datta, and other Twitter users. |
| Fact Check | Misleading |
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