IAS Officer's Photo Shared As Junior Doctor Resting Foot On Patient's Bed

An image of an IAS officer resting his foot on a patient's bed is viral on Facebook with a misleading claim that the man is a junior doctor.

The photograph, where a man can be seen resting his foot on the hospital bed while talking to a patient, is originally of an IAS officer Jagdish Sonkar. Sonkar's image sparked a row and he was strongly criticised for such disrespectful behaviour.

The photo of Sonkar is being passed off a junior doctor in light of the recent strike by doctors of Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College, Kolkata. West Bengal's state run hospitals faced a shutdown after medical students went on a strike following an attack on NRS students over the death of a 75-year-old patient. The NRS called off their six-day long strike on June 17 after an interaction with chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

The viral image, captioned as, “This is (the condition of) junior doctor,” (Bengali caption: এই হোল জুনিয়র ডাক্তার )  had been shared more than 150 times at the time of writing this article.

Full View

The archived version of the post can be viewed here.

Fact Check

BOOM ran a reverse image search and found that the orginal photo is from 2016 when Sonkar's act was captured on camera. The same photo was widely circulated at that time.

Sonkar, a 2013 batch IAS officer, was on a routine visit to the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre in Chattisgarh when he was photographed resting his foot on a patient's bed while talking to a patient. Netizens came down heavily on Sonkar, for his reported arrogant behaviour.

The IAS Association's official Twitter handle also tweeted their disappointment.

Though Sonkar had later rendered an apology on Facebook, stating “No amount of words can justify the said act,although it was unintentional and was thoroughly avoidable,” the apology is no longer available on Facebook. In fact, Sonkar’s Facebook profile too has been deleted.

Below is a screenshot of an article about Sonkar's apology that he posted on Facebook.

The strike by NRS medical college doctors led to many fake posts doing the rounds on social media. Read other debunks by BOOM here , here and here.