New Delhi: A video was shared on social media showing a man carrying a child on his shoulders with users claiming that it was due to the non-availability of an ambulance at the Lord Venkateswara Swamy temple in Tirumala, Andhra Pradesh during the recent stampede incident.
The PTI Fact Check Desk investigated the claim and found it to be false. The viral video is unrelated to the recent stampede in Tirupati and dates back to April 2022.
A user on X (formerly Twitter) shared the viral video on January 9, 2025, with the caption, "There is a father in the Tirupati accident who could not even get an ambulance. Carrying his son on his shoulders. This is a shame on humanity."
The post has been viewed over a thousand times with users sharing it under the same false claim, believing it to be true.
To verify the claim, the Fact Check Desk conducted a reverse image search of the keyframes from the viral video using Google Lens. The search revealed a report by TV9 Bharatvarsh, published on April 26, 2022, which featured visuals from the same video. This confirms that the viral video is not recent but over three years old.
According to a report by the TV9 Bharatvarsh website, the incident occurred in Tirupati in April 2022. Ambulance drivers at RUIA Hospital allegedly forced a father to transport his son’s body on a motorcycle. Following the incident, the state government suspended the senior resident medical officer of the hospital and issued a show-cause notice to the hospital superintendent.