Viral images of burnt body not of UAE expat
Ramesh died in lightning strike in Chennai on June 6, but pictures shared online are mostly of Kerala car crash victim
The colleagues of a former UAE resident killed in a lightning strike in India on June 6 were shocked to see images of a burnt body being circulated on social media, claiming it was the deceased.
Multiple images were circulated, but the one that went viral was that of a man burnt to death in a car crash in Kerala.
The deceased, H.M. Ramesh, 45, who was operations manager in a hypermarket chain, left the UAE for good six months ago and returned to Chennai, his native home in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
“After he came back, we started an export business of fruits and vegetables. We had gone to see the aqua farm of one of our friends in Arambakkam when the incident happened,” K. Prabhakaran, his friend and business partner told Gulf News by phone from Tamil Nadu.
Prabhakaran said Ramesh started clicking pictures of the site as soon as they got out of the car when lightning struck. “He died in a second... The back of his mobile phone melted… but strangely, its front didn’t even have a scratch,” Prabhakaran said.
A Tamil Nadu police officer investigating the case provided Gulf News with the actual photos of Ramesh. “He suffered burns on his chest, stomach and feet, but his clothes were intact,” he said.
However, a message about his death went viral on social media in south India and in the UAE. It contains a voice note talking about Ramesh’s death and requesting everyone not to use mobile phones during a thunderstorm. It also features images of a completely burnt body lying on a road.
Gulf News traced the message to Mohammad Basheer A, general manager of the Sharjah branch of the hypermarket chain where Ramesh worked.
Basheer said he had attached a formal photo of Ramesh along with the message when he first shared it in his family group.
However, the message was forwarded to others and some people started attaching false images. “In some messages, they are using some other photos also. However, the images of the burnt body are the ones that have been forwarded the most,” Basheer said. “That was the body of a man who was burnt to death in a car accident in Kerala some days ago.”