A video of a lady street dweller being forcefully dragged into an ambulance by a healthcare worker has gone viral on social media. The woman, who was believed to have possibly contracted the Coronavirus infection, was picked up from the side of a road as people gathered around and watched.
Reluctant to leave her kids alone, the woman pleaded with the official to leave her be. Her children can be seen running behind the man who roughs up their mother and then pushes her inside the ambulance. However, the heart-wrenching appeal by the kids makes no difference to the paramedic.
Appalled to see such outrageous behaviour towards the less fortunate, netizens shamed the medical team for "treating humans even worse than animals". But, as social media users were not sure about the location of the incident, several claims were made regarding where the episode transpired.
The claim
While a section of Facebook and Twitter users claimed that the video is from Bengaluru, others shared it as the cruelty of paramedics in Hyderabad. The only common aspect in both the claims was the complete disapproval of the inhumane treatment given to the homeless woman.
"The person caught hold of the lady in such a way that it looks as if she is a thief. Her kids are terrified by the act. Instead of doing anything like this in front of her kids, guide them and make them understand that it's for their safety," wrote one Facebook user while another said, "This sort of behaviour is not at all acceptable. She is a suspected patient of COVID-19 and not a criminal."
Fact-Check
As we at International Business Times, India, set out to investigate the claims made about the site of the unfortunate incident, we found that the video is from Mumbai. Upon closely watching the clip multiple times, we came across a couple of clues that give away the location.
Firstly, we discovered that written on the door of the ambulance are the words - "Maharashtra Shashan" in Hindi, which translates to "Maharashtra Governance". Also, the number of the ambulance starts with 'MH', confirming that is a scene from somewhere in Maharashtra.
Secondly, it can be seen in the video that the woman was picked up from beneath a restaurant named Prabhu's. We took a screengrab of the board of the eatery and conducted a reverse image search which revealed that the restaurant is in Mumbai's Masjid Bundar area.
We then ran a separate geo search of Masjid Bundar and found that a Prabhu's restaurant indeed exists in the area.
Thus, we hereby confirm that the viral video is from Mumbai and not from Bengaluru or Hyderabad as claimed by different social media users.
