Authors
A self-taught social media maverick, Saurabh realised the power of social media early on and began following and analysing false narratives and ‘fake news’ even before he entered the field of fact-checking professionally. He is fascinated with the visual medium, technology and politics, and at Newschecker, where he leads social media strategy, he is a jack of all trades. With a burning desire to uncover the truth behind events that capture people's minds and make sense of the facts in the noisy world of social media, he fact checks misinformation in Hindi and English at Newschecker.
Claim
Former Member of Parliament and Samajwadi Party leader Ramakant Yadav has claimed that there is not even a single death because of coronavirus and it is just a beguilement and is propagated to distract people from NRC and CAA.
पूर्व सपा सांसद बोले- NRC-CAA से लोगों को भटकाने का छलावा है कोरोना
यूपी के आजमगढ़ से पूर्व सांसद और सपा नेता रमाकांत यादव ने कहा- कोरोना वायरस बस एक छलावा है. नागरिकता संशोधन कानून, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय नागरिक रजिस्टर और महंगाई से ध्यान भटकाने के लिए मुद्दा उछाला जा रहा है. रमाकांत यादव ने कहा- दुनिया में कोरोना हो सकता है लेकिन भारत में नहीं, वो कोरोना संक्रमित व्यक्ति को गले लगाने को तैयार हैं.
Verification
A pandemic that has also turned into an infodemic because of misinformation, disinformation and fake news around it, has now been termed a fraud by a former MP in India. First, an Indian Right Wing politician claimed that the cow urine and dung can cure coronavirus which was immediately debunked by newschecker.in but the penchant for Indian politician’s pontification on the pandemic just doesn’t end. Now another Indian politician has made a claim that is absurd yet believable by many.
As we began fact-checking Yadav’s claim, we first checked the verified regular updates sent by newschecker.in to its subscribers. As per our own regular updates, there are 4 deaths because of coronavirus recorded till 9 pm yesterday. Regular updates are being made by our team, one can subscribe for the same here.
Just to check the updated list of casualties because of the novel coronavirus, we checked the official website of Indian Health Ministry, and we learned that at 5.38 pm on March 21, 2020, there have been 4 deaths in India because of the novel coronavirus.
We also checked the reports published by multiple media outlets, some of which reported slightly higher/lower numbers than that of the Health Ministry, but as we have seen in the past, Indian media is also infamous for misreporting on sensitive issues.
It is noteworthy that none of the Indian media outlets reported zero deaths because of coronavirus hence proving Ramakant Yadav’s claim as bogus and politically motivated.
We also checked the latest coronavirus data released by International agencies. Data released by John Hopkins reports 4 deaths from India.
Data released by the World Health Organization also reports the same number of deaths in Indian territory as of the aforementioned map.
We also found a Times of India article which reported that Azamgarh Police has lodged an FIR against Ramakant Yadav for confusing people over Coronavirus.
UP: Azamgarh police lodge FIR against ex-MP Ramakant Yadav for confusing people over coronavirus | Varanasi News – Times of India
Representative image. VARANASI: Turncoat Samajwadi Party leader and former MP Ramakant Yadav has been booked by Azamgarh police in a case for fanning confusion among people against coronavirus through his video message. In his video made viral on social media, Yadav is claiming Covid-19 is a fraud and being propagated to divert attention of people from the issues of CAA, NRC, inflation and others.
It is evident from our fact check that there are 4 Indian nationals who have died of coronavirus and the claim made by ex-MP Ramakant Yadav is ‘False’ and politically motivated.
Sources
Google Search
Individual Research
Result: False
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Authors
A self-taught social media maverick, Saurabh realised the power of social media early on and began following and analysing false narratives and ‘fake news’ even before he entered the field of fact-checking professionally. He is fascinated with the visual medium, technology and politics, and at Newschecker, where he leads social media strategy, he is a jack of all trades. With a burning desire to uncover the truth behind events that capture people's minds and make sense of the facts in the noisy world of social media, he fact checks misinformation in Hindi and English at Newschecker.
