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| - Fact Check: Conspiracy theorists blame non-existent railway officer Mohammed Sharif for Odisha accident
India Today found that the officer on duty at the time of the accident was SB Mohnty. There is no Muslim senior officer mentioned in the nominal roll of Bahanaga Bazar station.
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India Today Fact Check
Bahanaga Bazar railway station was the closest to the accident site. The station master who was in charge at the time of the accident was SB Mohnty and he is not absconding.
In Short
- A social media user claimed that the station master at Bahanaga Bazar station is absconding
- The post said the station master was a Muslim man and fled after the train accident in Odisha
- India Today found that there was no officer on duty named Mohammed Sharif
On June 4, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told the press that the inquiry into the horrific railway accident that killed at least 275 in Balasore, Odisha, had been completed. He said that “as soon as the Commissioner of Railway Safety provides his report all the details will be known.”
Vaishnaw added that the “root cause of the horrifying incident has been identified. I do not want to go into details. Let the report come out. I will just say that the root cause and the people responsible have been identified.”
But even as the details are awaited, many on social media have taken to sleuthing on their own. And this has led to conspiracy theories and misinformation. One such post alleged that the station master, a Muslim man named Mohammed Sharif, had been absconding ever since the tragedy occurred.
“Station Master Mohammed Sharif missing since the train crash. Threads are unravelling,” read the post. The archived version of such posts can be seen here, here and here.
India Today found that the officer on duty at the station closest to the site of the accident was SB Mohnty. We found no Muslim senior officers listed working at the Bahanaga Bazar station.
OUR PROBE
The viral claim did not mention the name of the railway station where Sharif allegedly worked. We found that the Bahanaga Bazar railway station was the closest to the accident site. We could not find any credible news report about a station master by the name of Mohammed Sharif absconding from that station.
According to a report published by Odisha-based Kalinga TV, the assistant station master at the Bahanaga Bazar station was SB Mohanty.
India Today acquired the list of officers in the station’s nominal roll. In this list, we couldn’t find any employee by the name of Mohammed Sharif. According to that list, at the time of the accident, SK Pattnayak was the station manager. PK Panda, JK Nayak, and SB Mohnty were the superintendents.
Speaking to India Today, Pattnayak said that SB Mohnty was on duty at the time of the accident and he had been shifted to the Khurda Road Junction railway station after the accident for an inquiry. He also said everything would become clear after the inquiry and that Mohnty was not at fault for the accident.
Bahanaga Bazar station superintendent JK Nayak, speaking to India Today, said that no one called Mohammad Sharif handled station affairs. Nayak said, "No one is on the run. Everyone is cooperating in the inquiry. SB Mohnty, who was the station superintendent at the time of the accident, has been shunted to Khurda to join the investigation."
On June 4, the Odisha police tweeted warning those attempting to a communal spin to the train crash. “It has come to notice that some social media handles are mischievously giving communal colour to the tragic train accident at Balasore. This is highly unfortunate. Investigation by the GRP, Odisha into the cause and all other aspects of the accident is going on,” the tweet said.
(With inputs from Rittick Mondal and Indrojit Kundu)
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