Bhubaneswar: Biswajit Mallik was reported to be among the miracle survivors of June 2 Odisha train accident, but the story of his father Helaram Mallik, a resident of West Bengal, finding his 24-year-old son lying midst of dead bodies at a temporary morgue at Bahanaga in Balasore district has turned out to be fake.
“While most of the media houses were quite cooperative, some have tried to demean the relief efforts by publishing the fake news of a father rescuing a son presumed dead. Our senior officer has spoken to the father and he has clarified it was fake news,” Balasore collector Dattatraya Bhausaheb Shinde posted on his official Twitter handle.
The referral slip of Bhadrak hospital confirmed that the patient received adequate care and was never presumed dead, he further said.
The collector warned against reporting such “fake news” which he said have a demoralising effect on the frontline workers. “This type of immoral attempt to demean the frontline workers and people of Balasore will not be tolerated.”
In a letter to the collector, Superintendent of Fakir Mohan Medical College and Hospital informed that Helaram had confirmed that Biswajit was first carried by ambulance to Basudevpur CHC and then referred to Bhadrak district headquarters hospital on June 2. The following, Biswajit contacted Helaram who himself took the former to a private hospital in Kolkata despite him being referred to SCB Medical and Hospital in Cuttack.
The news report, which was first published by a reputed media house on June 5 and subsequently republished by several other national and international media, said Helaram reached out to his 24-year-old son on his cellphone after getting to know about the accident and the latter managed to answer the call with a feeble voice, conveying that he was still alive. The worried father then contacted a local ambulance driver and embarked on a 230 km journey to the crash site. Helaram, however, could not find his son at nearby hospitals and later traced him amid dead bodies at the temporary morgue set up at Bahanaga high school.
