Authors
Social media users shared a video of a distressed auto rickshaw driver talking to a reporter. The video also shows a cycle auto-rickshaw being seized. The 42-second video is being shared with the caption, “The Law of this country is only for poor people..!”
The claim accompanied by the video has been viral on Twitter in the past few days. You can view it here.
The claim was earlier posted by the Facebook account “JONY” on 7 October. The FB account name is also visible in the viral video as a credit/ watermark. This post garnered an engagement of 82K reactions and nearly 8K comments at the time of writing this fact check.
Fact Check/ Verification
We noticed Jamuna TV written on the reporter’s mic who was questioning the auto-rickshaw driver. On further search, we found that Jamuna TV is a news channel based in Bangladesh. On searching Jamuna TV’s YouTube channel, we found a two-minute long video of the claim posted on 6 October. The translated title of the video reads, “Now I will tie the rope around my neck; The cry of a rickshaw puller #Rickshaw_Puller”
Through a relevant keyword search on Google using the above cues, we came across a 9 October article published by News 18 which details the incident. As per the article, the man in the video is Fazlur Rahman, a battery auto-rickshaw driver in Dhaka, Bangladesh whose vehicle was seized by the Dhaka South City Corporation.
“As reported by Indiatimes, the man in the video says that he had taken a loan of Rs 80,000 recently to purchase the rickshaw, which was seized by authorities,” stated the News18 article.
After the incident’s video went viral on social media platforms, Sabbir Hasan Nasir, Director of Bangladesh-based company Shwapno came to Rahman’s rescue.
As per The Business Standard (TBS) article published on 8 October, “Fazlur now owns two rickshaws donated by others and is likely to receive another one. He now dreams of using these rickshaws in Shwapno’s home delivery service.”
“He expressed his heartfelt gratitude to Shwapno, saying, “I can’t explain the joy inside my heart. I want to be a good entrepreneur and keep the business going. I’m extremely grateful to Shwapno for their generosity and good will,” the TBS article quoted.
Rahman’s auto rickshaw incident was also reported by Dhaka Tribune and Bangladesh Post on 8 October.
This claim was debunked earlier by our Gujarati fact checker.
Conclusion
The viral video of a distressed auto-rickshaw driver talking to a reporter is not from India. The incident took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh where Fazlur Rahman, a battery auto-rickshaw driver’s vehicle was seized by the Dhaka South City Corporation.
Result: Misplaced Context
Our Sources
Jamuna TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdoqhtOJBmE
The Business Standard: https://tbsnews.net/bangladesh/fazlur-rahman-distressed-rickshaw-puller-turns-ambitious-entrepreneur-142819
Dhaka Tribune: https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/dhaka/2020/10/08/rickshaw-puller-turns-entrepreneur-with-help-from-shwapno
Bangladesh Post: https://bangladeshpost.net/posts/making-rickshaw-puller-an-entrepreneur-44165
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