Cops Deny UP Woman Drowned Kids Over Food Shortage in Lockdown

According to the police, the woman had actually drowned her children after an argument with her husband.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

CLAIM

Amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown across India, wire agency IANS published a news report claiming that a woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Bhadohi had thrown five of her children into a river owing to her inability to find food for them during lockdown.

The report, which was carried by news portal Outlook, quoted sources as saying that the woman had earlier said she and her children were not getting food in the lockdown and money inflow had stopped because she was a daily wage earner.

Several people on Twitter, including lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan shared the story with the claim that the woman took this step because she had no food for her children owing to the lockdown.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

In a thread of two videos in English and Hindi, activist Kavita Krishnan also took to Twitter to slam the incident, saying that people in India were being asked to choose betweendeath by COVID-19 and death by hunger.

An archived version can be seen here.

News portal Business Insider had also carried the report claiming that the reason was lack of food, but later took it down and carried another version quoting the police.

TRUE OR FALSE?

This is fake news and the woman did not throw her children into the river because of lack of food but because of an argument with her husband. The police have clarified the reason behind the woman taking such a step and stated that it has nothing to do with the lockdown.

WHAT WE FOUND

We noticed that the incident reportedly took place in Bhadohi. On checking the official Twitter handle of the Bhadohi Police, we found several clarifications from them about the incident.

In one tweet, they issued a press note stating that the woman had drowned her children because of an argument with her husband which had disturbed her greatly and that there was no connection to lack of food in the incident. The note also says that an investigation is being carried out against those news outlets who have spread this news. The woman was identified by the police as Manju Devi.

We also found another video bite from the Bhadohi Superintendent of Police on the Twitter handle, in which he says that he had investigated the matter and that the reason behind the woman’s action was the argument with her husband which caused her mental stress. He further says that there was no lack of food, or anything else and that the police had gone to her house to check the same. He then calls it fake news and says that an investigation is being carried out into it.

In yet another video, we found a bite of the woman Manju Devi herself, in which she can be heard saying that she had been driven to the action after an argument with her husband. She herself states that there was no lack of food involved but that she had a lot of stress about arguments with her husband, who she also claimed would hit her.

Further, on searching for news reports about the incident, we found one by Hindustan Times which said that the woman had also jumped in herself but later swam back to shore. The report also quotes the District Magistrate of Bhadohi Rajendra Prasad as saying that “it was due to the quarrel with her husband that the woman took the decision to throw her five children into the river.”

A news report by PTI also said the same, quoting a police officer saying that Devi and her husband had been fighting for some time.

Therefore, it is clear that the news report by IANS carried false information that the woman had drowned her children over lack of food due to the lockdown in India.

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