Further highlighting India’s crisis situation amid a deadly second wave of COVID-19, a video of a man pleading with the police for an oxygen cylinder in Uttar Pradesh’s Agra has gone viral. There are conflicting reports regarding the issue, with some reports claiming that the man was pleading the police to not take away the cylinder he had arranged for his mother. However, the police said that the cylinder being carried away was empty, and the man was asking for a new one. 

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In the video, the man drops to his knees and pleads at the feet of the police officer with folded hands. 

“Aapke charano me vinti karta hoon, sir…meri ma ko bacha lo (I fall to your feet, requesting you to please save my mother),” the wailing man can be heard saying in the video as he is being dragged away by men while cops stand, watching a cylinder being carried away by two men. 

The video was taken outside the Upadhyay hospital in Agra. 

The Youth Congress posted the video, along with the caption, “This is a really heart breaking video. A man is begging in front of policeman not to take a Oxygen cylinder he has arranged for his mom in Agra, UP. This is a total inhumane act by the police. Is this how you should treat your fellow citizens Mr Yogi ?”

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Meanwhile, the police issued a clarification over the incident, saying that the allegations are fake. 

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“Because of a shortage of oxygen in Agra, some people were arranging their own personal cylinder and giving them to hospitals for their relatives’ treatment. In this video, an empty cylinder is being taken away by two men. The man is requesting the police to arrange cylinders for him too so his relative inside the hospital can be treated,” NDTV quoted the Agra police as saying on Wednesday. 

India is grappling to deal with the world’s worst deadliest wave of infections, which has crippled the country’s healtcare system. Hospitals across the country are running deperately short of medical supplies, with even cremation spaces over-burdened with the spiralling daily death toll. 

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On Thursday, India reported over nearly 380,000 new cases, along with 3,645 deaths. Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday recorded 29,824 new cases, and 266 deaths.