Authors
In wake of the novel coronavirus outbreak in March 2020, Mumbai’s local train services shutdown for the first time (in the pandemic) on 23 March 2020. After nearly a year, Central and Western Railways’ local train services in Mumbai resumed to almost its full capacity on 1 February.
Earlier, Maharashtra government allowed only certain sections of people including emergency staff, teaching and non-teaching staff, women and disabled to use local trains during phased unlocking.
Though resumed, the general public can travel on the local trains only between specified time slots (first train to 7am, 12 to 4pm, 9pm to last train). The remaining time intervals have been reserved for essential services only.
Many Mumbaikars showed up to travel in the local trains since it’s recent reopening. Amid this, a video showing massive crowds of people getting on a train from both sides is being attributed to a recent scene at Borivali station.
You can see an example of this claim below.
Its archived version can be viewed here.
Another example of the claim can be viewed here.
Fact Check/ Verification
Through reverse image search of certain keyframes from the video we came across a video posted on Navin Poojary’s Youtube channel. Titled, “Amazing mumbai local crowd” the 20-second video was published on 21 March 2016. Note that this is the same video as posted in the initial claim.
Western Railway, Mumbai Central Division clarified that the video in context isn’t a recent one via Twitter. “Sufficient uniformed staff are deployed at stations to regulate the crowd. No such instance of crowd congregation has been reported from across suburban section,” reads their tweet.
Another tweet by the Divisional Manager, Western Railway also clarifies the video to be old. “The video is old. Requesting not to share such misguiding videos,” reads the tweet.
This claim was also debunked in our Hindi fact-check.
Conclusion
Our research makes it clear that an old video of overcrowding in one of Mumbai’s local trains is being falsely shared as a view of Borivali station after resumption on 1 February 2021.
Result: Misplaced Context
Our Sources
2016 Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5CSDX12rSs&feature=emb_title
Western Railway, Mumbai Central Division: https://twitter.com/rpfwrbct/status/1356512613673275392?s=20
Divisional Manager, Western Railway: https://twitter.com/drmbct/status/1356511749369786368?s=20
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