A photo of a bus fallen into a river is being circulated on social media with a claim that the driver of the bus killed all 90 people travelling in it intentionally. It further adds a communal narrative to the story by identifying the driver as a Hindu and the passengers as Muslims.
The caption goes on to add that the driver killed the people because he was once forced to eat non-vegetarian food at a Muslim wedding in the 90s.
However, we found the photo is from 2019 when six people were killed when a bus plunged into the Trishuli river in Benighat of Dhading district, Nepal.
CLAIM
The photo is being shared with a story that says that the driver killed all 90 people because when he was forced to eat non-vegetarian food no one helped him or stopped the boys who were forcing him.
It further adds that this story was narrated by the conductor of the bus to a journalist.
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
WHAT WE FOUND
We conducted a Google reverse image search on the photo that is being circulated and found it in a news report in the website of Nepal-based daily The Kathmandu Post.
The report said that six people died and 23 were missing, after a Kathmandu-bound bus from Malangwa, carrying nearly 50 people, plunged into the Trishuli river in Benighat on 9 August 2019.
The bus driver Laxman Jamarkattel, assistant driver Pramod Chaudhary and conductor Rishi Uprety were rescued.
Six people had died when the bus plunged into Trishuli river.
(Source: The Kathmandu Post/Screenshot)
Next, we looked for any news reports about 90 wedding guests who died in a bus accident in the Chambal river. But we found no such news reports.
However, we found a news report from 2009 in The New Indian Express which read that at least 33 people were killed and eight others injured when a bus travelling between Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh veered off the Rajghat bridge over the dry river bed of Chambal river in Morena district of MP, on 1 June 2009.
We also looked for the story as the caption said it was narrated to a journalist but found nothing on that either.
Clearly, a fabricated story is being shared on social media with a communal narrative.
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