A fabricated screenshot, purportedly showing a tweet by lawyer-turned-politician Kapil Sibal, where he appears to state that he would commit suicide if the Ram Temple in Ayodhya is build, has been revived on social media.
BOOM rummaged through news reports and social media posts, but was unable to find any credible source for such a comment being made by Sibal. We also used WaybackMachine to view archived tweets that may have been deleted, but was unable to find an archived version of any such tweet being made.
The consecration ceremony for the Ram Temple in Ayodhya is slated for January 22, 2024, in just over a month from the time of writing this. The post is being shared in this backdrop.
"I will stand by my word that I will commit suicide before the construction of Ram temple," read the tweet in the fabricated screenshot, purportedly made by Kapil Sibal on July 29, 2020.
A user shared the screenshot with the caption, "Ram mandir opening is scheduled for 24th January 2024. Someone pls remind Kapil Sibal not to panic.... help is available‼️"
Fact Check
BOOM found that the exact same claim has been viral in Hindi since 2020. We published a fact-check on a similar screenshot in Hindi, on July 22, 2020, which highlighted that no such credible report or social media posts exist that would corroborate such a tweet being made by Sibal.
We looked for statements made by Sibal regarding the Ram Temple, and found a statement from 2017 where he stated that "the temple will be built based on Lord Ram's wishes".
More recently, Sibal was asked by ANI on whether he would be attending the consecration ceremony on January 22, 2024, to which he replied, "I have Ram in my heart."
We also used WaybackMachine to look through the history of Sibal's Twitter account, which would include posts he may have deleted later. We were unable to find any such tweet to exist from 2020.