A video of a railway track laying machine in use for the East Coast Rail Link project in Malaysia, which is a joint venture between Malaysia and China, is being shared on social media falsely claiming it is from India showing an under-construction railway track by the Indian Railways.
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The same viral video is being shared on Facebook with other misleading captions like, "The pace of construction of new railways in Modi's new India.*"
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BOOM also received the viral video on our WhatsApp helpline number (+91 77009 06588) inquiring about the location of the video.
The caption when translated from Hindi reads,"This is today's India. The development that is taking place is visible and does not have to be shown."
("ये हैं आज का भारत ये जो विकास हो रहा है ये दिखता नही दिखाना पडता है")
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral video is from Malaysia of railway tracks being laid under the East Coast Rail Link, which is a joint Malaysia-China rail project that links the east coast of the country.
We broke the video into key-frames and ran a reverse image search using Google Lens, which search results showed that the viral video is from Malaysia, and not from India as being claimed.
The same video was posted by the X (formerly known as Twitter) handle @TripInChina on January 9, 2024, with the caption, "Malaysia's East Coast Railway began laying tracks."
Taking a hint from this, we found other reports on this project and found that the East Coast Rail Link is a joint Malaysia-China rail project that links the east coast of Malaysia. The track-laying process of the ECRL, was started in December 2023.
We found another video news report from December 16, 2023 posted by AP's official YouTube channel. In this report we can see the same track laying machine being used and the name of "China communications construction company", which is also seen in the viral video.
The caption of the video states that Malaysia’s King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah had officiated the start of the track-laying process of the ECRL or East Coast Rail Link in his home state of Pahang.
It further states that as part of China's Belt and Road initiative, the project spans 665 kilometers and crosses four states - Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang and Selangor. The construction for the project began in August 2017 and is due for completion in 2025.
Comparison
Additionally, we also found a news report on the rail project by Chinese state run outlet Global Times, which had published a report on it titled, "Malaysia's East Coast Rail Link, under BRI, starts track laying Monday" on December 12, 2023.
The same track laying machine can be seen in the featured image of this article.
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