'Satire Got Nothing on This': Clip of Stampede-Like Case in City Bus Makes Netizens Tense in India

New Delhi (Sputnik): At a time when confirmed COVID-19 cases have exceeded 266,000 in India, the central government has partly “unlocked” the country to reopen the economy. After more than two months of nationwide lockdown, people who still have jobs just want to make it to work – irrespective of the pandemic scare.

The Indian government on Monday allowed the functioning of offices, restaurants, malls, and places of worship – while urging companies to call minimum staff to work and requesting those going out to maintain social distancing at all times. In a bid to catch up on the usual fast-paced working life routine, people are seemingly forgetting to take the advised precautions against the coronavirus.

On Tuesday, a video showing the rush of a crowd attempting to enter a local city bus in India began making the rounds on social media.

The clip, which was first shared by Congress politician Milind Deora, shows a bunch of masked and unmasked people literally trying to stomp on each other in order to enter the bus. At first, Deora informed his followers that the clip was from Mumbai city – where the number of COVID-19 cases has breached the 50,000 mark – but some netizens later argued that the video is from Kolkata city – that has around 3,000 coronavirus cases. 

The Congress politician deleted the wrongly informed clip, but it has already gone viral. 

I have been told that the video is from Kolkata, not Mumbai. Pending verification, I am deleting the tweet.

Until local train services resume, @myBESTBus is unable to ensure adequate physical distancing norms for all Mumbai’s commuters.

Perhaps @Olacabs & @Uber can pitch in? https://t.co/uX41bJ5dLt

— Milind Deora मिलिंद देवरा (@milinddeora) June 9, 2020

​The video has left netizens even tenser, turning to Twitter and Instagram to vent. Some are even making meme videos out of the alarming clip.

Satire got nothing on this. pic.twitter.com/rK1hUlT7Xe

— Aniruddha Guha (@AniGuha) June 9, 2020

View this post on Instagram

Social distancing being followed in a bus. People are following all guidelines, wearing masks, not touching each other, following a queue system. Guess we are all safe. ❤️ On a serious note, the government needs to really upgrade the transport services because these people don't have a choice but to earn their daily bread. And well, to us.......it's understandable that most of us don't have a choice, but a stampede won't really be the best way to deal with this.

A post shared by Ted The Stoner (@tedthestoner) on Jun 9, 2020 at 12:26am PDT

Unlock should be called as RamBharose 1.0..

This is DTC bus from Chitranjan park- the famous mini Bengal of saddi Dilli https://t.co/dX1cLLYvM7

— 💙💙🙏🙏🙏💙💙 (@TheAmitCHOWDHRY) June 9, 2020

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Corona entered her DM as well!

A post shared by Bewakoof.com (@bewakoofofficial) on Jun 9, 2020 at 4:00am PDT

Deora shared a similar video from Mumbai city on Sunday, showing passengers pushing each other in and out of a city bus.

Social distancing for Mumbai’s urban poor is like herding cats.

Mumbaikars will endure intolerable levels of hardship because we turned a blind eye to decades of institutionalised corruption & negligence in one of Asia’s richest civic bodies.

The rot transcends party politics pic.twitter.com/pgZAozZQo2

— Milind Deora मिलिंद देवरा (@milinddeora) June 8, 2020

​Currently, while the country is trying to return to normalcy, the number of COVID-19 cases is greater than ever.

As of now, the federal Ministry of Health has recorded a total of 266,598 cases of the coronavirus, of which 129,314 have been cured and 7,471 patients have died. The overall number of active cases in India stands at 129,813 as of now.