Fact Check: Video from Karachi shared with false claim of children damaging rail tracks in India

A video showing some children tampering with railway tracks has been doing the rounds on social media with the false claim that the incident took place in India.

However, when the Fact Check Desk investigated the viral claim, it found the video was not from India but from Karachi, Pakistan. Social media users are sharing this old video from Pakistan with false claims, presenting it as if it was from India.

On social media platform Facebook, a user shared the video with a post saying, "At this age, they are uprooting railway tracks. Imagine what they will do in the next 50 years. What Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar said about them should be read and understood by those in power. Just chanting his name will not help."

Many other users have shared this video across different social media platforms, and these posts have garnered over 100,000 views.

To verify the claim's authenticity, the Fact Check team extracted key frames from the video using the InVID tool and conducted a reverse image search. This led them to a Facebook page named 'Pakistani Trains', where the video was uploaded on December 5, 2023.

The context provided in the video indicated that it was from a railway line near Sartaj Khan Hill, Boat Basin Chowki, in Pakistan. The Facebook post also mentioned that the children seen on the tracks were stealing items, and a request for action against them was made.

Further investigation revealed that the Karachi Police took immediate action, apprehending the children involved in stealing items from the railway tracks and bringing them to the police station. Later, after assurances from their parents, the children were handed over to their parents. The investigation clearly shows that the viral video is not from India but from Karachi.