Hyderabad: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president Bandi Sanjay posted a farmer suicide video on his official Twitter account on August 7 that boomeranged after a fact check by a state-run Twitter account proved it fake.
The video shows a farmer from Medak district crying on camera alleging that forest authorities and the Sarpanch took away his land. He has no other way but to die by suicide.
Bandi’s tweet also mentioned that unable to bear the death of her son, the farmer’s mother died by suicide.
The BJP leader went on to attack the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government describing the farmer’s move as a democide.
The tweet was widely liked and retweeted by several people showing sympathy towards the farmer’s family.
It was even reported by a few media houses including NTVJustIn, AsianetNewsTL and OpIndia.
However, the news of the farmer’s suicide and his mother’s death turned out to be fake. According to FactCheck_Telangana the farmer is currently alive and undergoing treatment at Medak hospital. His mother did not attempt suicide and is hail and healthy.
Locals said that the farmer had no land and was cultivating on forest land in the Devulapally village of Kowdipally Mandal.
Since the family failed to provide any land documents to prove it was their own, the Sarpanch and forest officials took over the land. Unable to bear this, the farmer tried to die by suicide.
Realising the act failed to work in his favour, Bandi Sanjay posted another tweet ‘admitting his mistake’ and then blamed a news report.
