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| - During the Supreme Court hearing of the R G Kar case on September 9, 2024, West Bengal government’s counsel Kapil Sibal informed the CJI-led Bench that 23 people had lost their lives due to the cease-work protest by the junior doctors. The Bench in its order asked the junior doctors to resume their duties by 5 pm on the following day and instructed the state government to ensure their safety.
On September 10, the junior doctors marched to the Swasthya Bhavan (the state health department office) in Sector V, Salt Lake, in the afternoon with their charter of demands. People from various walks of life joined the march in solidarity.
A video clip of a woman being interviewed by a TV journalist has gone viral in this context. In the clip, she is asked about her reasons for joining the junior doctors’ protest. The woman replies saying that the Supreme Court asked the junior doctors to go back to their duties as several lives had been lost owing to their cease-work. She adds that she finds this a one-sided argument. Then she says, “It is true that people have lost their lives. But people die every day — that should also be taken into consideration.” At this point, the video has been clearly edited and the line — people die every day — has been slowed down and repeated.
The video is being shared with the claim that the woman in the video is a doctor who accepts that people are dying because of the protests by the junior doctors and that she is fine with it.
Verified X (formerly Twitter) user Sanghamitra Bandhopadhyay (@SanghamitraLIVE) tweeted the video and wrote, “She is a doctor. She is accepting that people are dying because of protests by junior doctors. She is fine with it.”
She is a doctor.
She is accepting that people are dying because of protests by junior doctors.
She is fine with it. pic.twitter.com/4phYSiPH7Y
— Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay (@SanghamitraLIVE) September 10, 2024
The tweet has garnered over 16,000 views at the time of this article being written.
Another X user, Spandan Gain (@GainSpananLIVE), who claims to be a journalist, has shared the same video with the same claim.
She’s a protesting doctor, acknowledging patient deaths due to medical negligence during the #RGKar protest. And she’s seemingly okay with lives being lost every day. Slow clap… 👏 pic.twitter.com/PsEjEm5UA0
— Spandan Gain (@GainSpandanLIVE) September 10, 2024
X user Souvik RoyChowdhury (@SRC_Offic) shared the same video and called for the cancellation of the doctor’s license.
🛑 এটা দেখুন, এরা করবে ডাক্তারি ? 🛑
সারা বাংলা তে ইতিমধ্যেই যেখানে চিকিৎসা না পেয়ে মৃত্যু হয়েছে ২৫ এর বেশী, সেখানে এরা এরকম ঘৃণ্য চক্রান্তে নেমেছে! ছিঃ, ধিক্কার জানাই!
এই যদি জুনিয়র ডাক্তারদের ছিড়ি হয়, তাহলে বহিষ্কার করা হোক এদের, বাতিল করা হোক লাইসেন্স।#RGKarProtest pic.twitter.com/AVshnUk4s9
— Souvik RoyChowdhury (@SRC_Offic) September 10, 2024
Fact Check
We identified the woman in the video interviewed by ABP Ananda (the channel’s logo is visible on the mic). Her name is Debopriya Bandyopadhyay. She is not a doctor, but a theatre artiste and a former student of Calcutta University, where she pursued an MA degree. Below is a screenshot of her Facebook profile:
We also found that Debopriya herself had shared a post on Facebook stating that she had been misquoted and a part of her statement to the TV channel was clipped and shared out of context. In the Facebook post, she attached a screenshot of the tweet by @SanghamitraLive.
We then looked through ABP Ananda’s coverage of the August 10 demonstration at Salt Lake and found the original clip. In it, journalist Sandip Sarkar can be seen interviewing Debopriya.
The conversation goes like this:
Journalist: Which Hospital are you from?
Debopriya: I am a citizen, not a doctor.
Journalist: Okay. So, you want to join the doctors’ procession?
Debopriya: Yes, most definitely.
Journalist: What are the reasons for your participation and support for the doctors’ protest campaign today in front of the Swasthya Bhavan?
Debopriya: Yesterday the Supreme Court asked the junior doctors to go back to their duties soon because people are losing lives because of their their cease-work protest. This is a one-sided argument. It is true that people are losing their lives but one also has to consider the fact that people die every day. Are all those deaths caused by junior doctors’ strike? If 7,300 junior doctors have stopped working aren’t all the other doctors working? They definitely are. Besides, there is information that medical facilities are available at R G Kar. Hence, we won’t accept this one-sided narrative.”
So, it is clear, that the latter part of the conversation was edited out. Not only that, at the very outset, Debopriya clarified that she was not a doctor, but a common citizen. This part, too, was edited out.
We also spoke to Debopriya. She told Alt News, “Each of those 23 deaths is unfortunate and heartbreaking. I just made the point that there must be some kind of verification before one claims that all of those deaths were caused by the cease-work by junior doctors. It is being taken as a gospel truth and the junior doctors’ protest is being maligned based on that. How can one be sure that the doctors’ protest singularly caused those deaths? My statement was edited, distorted and portrayed in a manner that suited a particular agenda.”
Hence, it is clear from the above findings that the video being shared while questioning the morals of doctors is edited and misleading. The woman seen in the viral video clip is not a doctor, but a stage actor. A part of her statement to a TV channel has been made viral out of context.
Ankita Mahalanobish is an intern at Alt News.
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