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| - Fact Check: Rumours of organ trade under the garb of Covid-19 go viral
Some sensational social media posts claim that certain hospitals in Mumbai running organ trafficking rackets during the pandemic. India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be false.
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India Today Fact Check
No such incident has happened. Police have quashed such claims as rumours. The pictures are also unrelated.
Are certain hospitals in Mumbai running organ trafficking rackets during the pandemic? Are they fudging medical reports of non-Covid patients to get them admitted and then harvesting their organs?
This is what some sensational social media posts are claiming. These posts narrate the story of a person who purportedly died under suspicious circumstances after being declared Covid-positive. It is being said that several of his organs were found missing after his demise.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be false. No such incident has happened in Mumbai.
Part of the long post in Hindi translates to, "A new scam in the name of corona. In Gorai area of Bhayandar, there was no Covid-19 case. A person with mild fever, cold and cough went to a hospital to get himself checked. He was declared corona-positive and forcefully admitted in the hospital. A few days later, he suddenly passes away. All arrangements were made to cremate the body. But on the pressure of family members, the body was shown to them and several of his body parts were found missing. There should be a CBI probe."
The viral post has pictures of a body wrapped in a shroud and a body burning in a cremation furnace. The archived version can be seen here.
This post has also been shared in the form of an article in a website called "Delhi Crime Press". The archived version of this article can be seen here.
AFWA probe
The viral post is exactly the same as the "Delhi Crime Press" article. Most social users have attributed the post to correspondent Om Shukla from the website. The registered office of "Delhi Crime Press" is in Dwarka, Delhi.
We looked for authentic news sources to verify the claim but did not find any. It seemed strange that such a grim incident, allegedly from Mumbai, did not find any mention in local media but has been covered by a little-known website in Delhi.
The post narrates the story of a patient and a hospital in Mumbai but does not mention their names. In order to find out the truth, we spoke to Om Shukla who accepted that the news is completely false. He told us that the pictures used in the article are not from Mumbai but Lucknow. He said his source for the article was WhatsApp.
He said, "I accept it was my mistake that I did not verify the authenticity of the news before publishing it. When I uploaded it on my website, it instantly became a hit. But I will remove it now. This has happened for the first and the last time."
When Mumbai panicked
According to a report by "Navbharat Times" published on July 16, recently, there were rumours of organ trafficking in Gorai area of northwest Mumbai.
It was being said that even people who were not infected by Covid-19 were being declared positive. Such persons were being forcefully admitted in hospitals and their vital organs extracted.
This rumour had scared people so much that municipal health workers came under attack after being mistaken for organ traders. We spoke to Dilip Sawant, additional CP, Mumbai North, who rubbished claims of organ trade in Gorai. He said there hasn't been any such incident in the area.
Though organ trafficking incidents have been reported from Mumbai in the past, but the viral post being shared on social media is baseless. No incident of organ trade under the garb of the Covid-19 pandemic has been reported from Gorai or any part of Mumbai. The pictures being shared with the post are also not from Mumbai.
After reading the related fact-check story published in "AajTak", Versha Verma, a Lucknow-based social worker, filed an FIR against "Delhi Crime Press". Versha runs an NGO in Lucknow which performs the last rites of unclaimed bodies.
The pictures used in the viral post were taken from Versha's Facebook page. The body seen in the pictures belonged to a woman who was severely ill and died in a government hospital in Lucknow.
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