No, LIC Staff Didn’t Attempt Suicide Over PM’s Call to Sell Stake

A video is being circulated with claim that an employee attempted suicide over the govt’s call to sell stake in LIC.

An old video from Madurai is being circulated with a claim that unhappy over Narendra Modi’s decision to sell the LIC company, an employee attempted suicide in Surat.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during her Budget speech on Saturday, 1 February, proposed to sell a part of the government’s stake in the insurance giant, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), through an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

CLAIM

Now, a video which shows a man attempting suicide is being circulated on social media with the claim that he is an employee of the LIC and he tried to kill himself as he was upset with the government’s decision of selling its stake.

The Hindi caption reads, “नरेन्द्र मोदी के LIC कंपनी बेचने के निर्णय से नाखुश होकर गुजरात के सूरत शहर में कर्मचारी की LIVE खुदकशी ।”[Translation: Unhappy over Narendra Modi's decision to sell LIC company, an employee attempted suicide in Gujarat’s Surat.]

An archived version of the tweet can be accessed here.(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

The same video has been shared by multiple other people with the same claim.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

TRUE OR FALSE?

The video hasn’t been doctored in any way, but the claim with which the video is being circulated is false.

Firstly, it is from Madurai and not Gujarat, as the viral post claims, and the incident happened on 8 January 2020. Recalling his wife’s suicide, after she was harassed by his parents, the man, identified as Shakti, climbed on to a nearby transformer and tried to kill himself.

He had suffered some minor burns and is now out of danger.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

On fragmenting the video into several keyframes and conducting a reverse search, we came across a news report by Tamil Web Dunia from 8 January 2020, which had reported on the incident.

According to this article, the man, Shakti, is a soldier from Madurai.

Taking a cue from there, we searched on Google with the keywords ‘Madurai soldier attempts suicide Shakti’.

We, then, came across several reports by media outlets, including Times of India and DT Next, which state that Shakti attempted suicide due to domestic issues.

(Source: DTNext/Screenshot)

Shakti’s wife, Thenisha, had consumed poison and died, following which a police inquiry was set up. When Shakti, along with his relatives, approached the Madurai Collectorate for the inquiry, fearing police action, Shakti attempted suicide.

Evidently, the video being circulated is old and has nothing to do with the government selling its stake in LIC.

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