Screengrab from video
Chamarajanagar: A viral video purported to be of a Karnataka legislator’s son, showing him galloping on a horse without a mask, is an old one shot before the imposition of the lockdown to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, a police officer said on Tuesday.
“This is an old video from before the Covid-19 pandemic,” Chamarajanagar Superintendent of Police, H.D. Anand Kumar, told IANS, busting the misconceptions surrounding the viral post gaining currency on Twitter.
Kumar said people are circulating the video without bothering to know the genuineness of the footage.
In the video, a young man is seen galloping on a horse on the main road where a traffic sign says ‘Welcome to Gundlupet’.
Many netizens identified the man riding the brown horse with white patches as the son of Gundlupet BJP MLA Niranjan Kumar.
Netizens also criticised the rider for violating the lockdown regulations and for not wearing a mask in Covid times.
Located in Chamarajanagar district, Gundlupet is 204 km southwest of Bengaluru.
In the video, people on five two-wheelers were seen trailing the horse as it galloped in the middle of the road and drifted away to the right on the wrong lane as the video ended.
The rider, wielding a stick, could be seen controlling the horse and slowing its pace as he approached what appeared to be the rear portion of an autorickshaw even as a couple zipped by on a two-wheeler from the opposite direction.
Kumar said fake viral posts such as this video are an unwelcome distraction for the police department which is already heavily loaded with Covid-19 related work.
“We are all loaded with Covid-19 work, it is a huge responsibility,” he said.
Incidentally, Chamarajanagar is yet to report a Covid-19 positive case.
In April, Karnataka Police had launched a dedicated fake news busting website, urging people to report any such news/video for verification.
