Tirupur Police’s viral awareness video is being spread tagged with misinformation

April 26, 2020 Sai Keerthi

Spread the truth:

An awareness video being circulated by the Tirupur Police in Tamil Nadu regarding the spread of COVID-19 and the importance of social distancing has gone viral among social media platforms. The video shows the police officers rounding up three men on a bike and forcefully pushing them into an ambulance in which an alleged COVID-19 infected patient is resting. The full video uploaded on YouTube can be found here.

However, the video is being shared tagged with misinformation regarding the context of the video. Social media users have misunderstood the people on the bike to be common citizens that is being taught a lesson by the police force. This information is being spread on many platforms like Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp.

Twitter

ANI tweeted about the video and as speculation rose which had around 2300 retweets, later clarified that the video was staged.

#WATCH: Tamil Nadu Police put lockdown violators in an ambulance with a fake #COVID19 positive patient as punishment, in Tiruppur. (Video Source: Tamil Nadu Police) pic.twitter.com/fj8xEJPTXh

— ANI (@ANI) April 24, 2020

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS AN ENACTMENT VIDEO; ‘VIOLATORS’ WERE ALSO PART OF THE SKIT.

— ANI (@ANI) April 24, 2020

Tiruppur Police catches #COVIDIOTS who don’t follow lockdown strictly and lock them up with a Covid19 patient in an ambulance 😂😂😂

Wait… They didn’t know he was a fake Corona patient. What an innovative way to teach them a lesson @tiruppursmc 😂👏👏👏#StayAtHome @ABPNews pic.twitter.com/yfMlC6sXl1

— Pinky Rajpurohit (ABP News) 🇮🇳 (@Madrassan_Pinky) April 24, 2020

Facebook

Truth

The video being circulated is orchestrated completely by the Tirupur Police and constitutes actors that are being pushed into the ambulance and are not actually citizens that have violated the lockdown restrictions but are simply enacting them. Towards the end of the video, the police officer is clearly heard stating that the video is indeed a staged portrayal and all of them including the alleged COVID-19 positive patient is an actor.

ANI also cleared there tweet later, they replied to their originat tweet with following text
“PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS AN ENACTMENT VIDEO; ‘VIOLATORS’ WERE ALSO PART OF THE SKIT.“

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS AN ENACTMENT VIDEO; 'VIOLATORS' WERE ALSO PART OF THE SKIT.

— ANI (@ANI) April 24, 2020

When people don’t follow #StayHome #WearAMask rules set by Govt, and roam around not practicing #SocialDistancing,

The #Tiruppur Police comes up with an innovative way to teach these youth a lesson they’ll never forget!😂😂 #coronavirus #COVID #TNFightsCorona #CoronavirusIndia pic.twitter.com/M1CHOxBSRp

— Apoorva Jayachandran (@Jay_Apoorva18) April 24, 2020

Many newspapers such as Times Of India , Deccan Herald and The Hindu carried news concerning the same but did not mention the video to being an enactment which fuelled further speculation. Fact checking website BOOM in conversation with IPS Disha Mittal, Superintendent of Police in Tirupur District confirmed that the entire video was staged and everyone included in it were actors. She added, “”All precautionary measures have been taken before shooting this video. Those boys (in the video) were all civilians who were acting. When something is not visible to naked eyes people will not care. But in the video, the fake corona patient becomes corona itself – and now people are scared of going near him. That is the idea behind the video.”