Video of Devotee Walking on Hands Falsely Shared as Him Traveling to Ram Temple
This video shows Baba Nihal Singh walking on his hands towards the Basukidham temple in Jharkhand, not Ayodhya.
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A video showing a man walking on his hands is going viral on social media to claim that he is headed towards Ayodhya's Ram Temple.
Who shared this claim?: Along with several social media users, this claim was also shared by media organizations like TV9 Bharatvarsh and India TV who linked the video with Ram Temple.
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(Archives of similar claims can be seen here and here.)
What's the truth?: The claim is false and the video is unrelated to the inauguration of Ram temple in Ayodhya.
The video shows Nihal Singh from Bihar, who has traveled 110 kilometers from Sultanganj, Bihar to Deoghar, Jharkhand on his hand to worship lord Shiva.
Singh confirmed it to Quint Hindi's WebQoof team that he is not headed towards Ayodhya.
How did we find out the truth?: On performing a reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the video, we came across YouTube videos which show interviews with the same person.
These interviews were shared in January by Youth Media Network, SPG BHARAT and Raman Rahi.
They stated that Nihal Singh is also known as Bichoo Baba from Bihar and he is walking on his hands towards Deoghar and Basukinath, Jharkhand.
He mentions that he started this 160 KM journey from Bihar on 4 July 2023.
Taking cue, we found reports about Singh shared by ETV Bharat Bihar and Amar Ujala in July 2023.
The reports mentioned that he has been visiting lord Shiva's temple since the past five years after his ill father's health improved.
We spoke with Singh: Quint Hindi found a poster about Singh on Facebook which also carried his phone number.
On contacting Singh, he dismissed the claim about him heading towards Ayodhya's Ram Temple.
He stated that the video shows him travelling on hand to Deoghar and Basukinath Dham in Jharkhand.
He added that there is still one month left for his journey.
Conclusion: A false claim about a man travelling to Ayodhya's Ram mandir on his hands is going viral on social media.
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