Social media posts claiming the man who went viral for declaring "sadak nahi chahiye, roti nahi chahiye...mandir chahiye", has died is fake. BOOM was able to identify him as Jitendra Gupta, a resident of Delhi who told us that he was alive, healthy and not contracted COVID.
"I am completely fine and have not visited Lucknow. I am not even COVID-19 positive so how can they even claim that I died due to lack of oxygen? The posts are shameful and ridiculous," said Gupta a 41-year-old construction contractor from Patparganj in Delhi.
Gupta went viral in December 2019 after appearing in a video by ScoopWhoop where he animatedly said, "Pehle mandir chahiye, sadak nahi chahiye, roti nahi chahiye...mandir chahiye" at a rally called by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad demanding the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. The video was shot by Samdish Bhatia, an anchor at the digital content website while he attended the rally.
The viral posts captioned in Hindi have a photo of Gupta and mock him for saying that temples should get priority and falsely claim that Gupta died due to lack of oxygen. The caption translates to, "This man who screamed that we do not want a hospital, we need a temple has died in Lucknow due to lack of oxygen."
(Original text in Hindi, "ये जो साहब आंखे फाड़ के कहते थे हमें अस्पताल नही चाहिये मंदिर चाहिये! ऑक्सीजन ना मिलने से इनकी लखनऊ में मौत हो गई।")
Some posts have also revived the viral part from the ScoopWhoop video and shared it with the false claim.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found a comment on a Facebook post, where a user had a shared the screenshot of a post by Ravindra Singh Negi, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Delhi which identified the man as Jeetu Gupta and said that the claims were fake and Gupta was alive.
We found the original post by Negi which called out those sharing the fake claim and said Gupta was a resident of Patparganj in Delhi.
While going through Negi's post, we found a comment by a Mohit Gupta who had also called the post fake and further posted a Facebook update saying Gupta was at home with his family and completely fine. We contacted Mohit Gupta, who said he was the nephew of the man in the viral photo and said, "My uncle is completely fine and alive. He is not dead or even in Lucknow, like the posts are claiming."
BOOM got in touch with Gupta, who said that the posts were fake and had caused immense stress to his family. "I learnt about the posts from a friend who sent me the video and said people were believing that I was dead. I was extremely shocked and saw that these posts were everywhere on Facebook. I immediately spoke a lawyer and we registered a complaint at the Madhu Vihar police station and they are investigating," Gupta said. He added that he is fit and healthy and got the first dose of vaccine on Saturday. "The posts are shameful and what are they even trying to achieve by linking what I said in the past to the current COVID situation and trying to claim to that I have?
Gupta also sent us a video that he made to send as a reply to the fake posts :
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