Fact-check: Did Army Jawans Push a Train to Start It?

A video went viral on social media on Monday, July 10, showing army jawans, police teams, railway staff, locals, and commuters onboard pushing a train to start it.

The video footage gained significant traction on Twitter as numerous media outlets, opposition leaders shared it. They made claims that an Indian Railway train, carrying hundreds of passengers, unexpectedly came to a halt and required pushing to resume its journey. However, the claim is false.

Contrary to misleading claims that the train had suddenly stopped and required assistance from the army jawans to restart, the true context of the video emerged.

The video actually shows people involved in preventing the fire from engulfing other coaches of the passenger train.

On July 7, 2023, five coaches of the Falaknuma Express caught fire on the Howrah-Secunderabad route. To prevent the fire from spreading to other coaches, the rear portion consisting of 3 coaches - S1 and 2 General Coaches were detached and manually moved away by dedicated railway staff and local police.

The video shows people pushing the train to detach it from the affected coaches. This was done to prevent the fire from spreading further. The people in the video did not waste time waiting for another engine to arrive. Instead, they took action to stop the spread of fire.

After the video went viral, the Ministry of Railways has acknowledged the video and said that it shows railway personnel and local police joining hands to detach the rear coaches and avoid further spread of fire.

Amitabh Sharma, the Official Spokesperson for the Ministry of Railways, said, "This relates to Train No 12703 (HWH-SC) fire incident on 7th July... Railway personnel and Local police joined hands to detach the rear coaches & avoid further spread of fire."

"Our gratitude to the alert police personnel for responding promptly," Sharma added, while pointing out that "an engine was on its way to help to detach the coaches, but instead of just waiting, our alert Railway & Local police personnel took immediate action."

South Central Railways also issued a clarification which dismissed the false information that was spread on social media regarding the video. Taking to micro-blogging platform Twitter, it said,''This relates to Tr No 12703 (HWH-SC) fire incident on 07.07.23 The video is about conscious decision by Rly Personnel & Local Police to detach the rear coaches to avoid further spread of fire. It was an emergency action taken without waiting for help from engine.''

The video was initially shared with misleading claims that the train had stopped abruptly and forced jawans and passengers to push it to make it move further. However, the truth is that the people in the video were helping to prevent a major fire.