Saint Found Alive in TN After 300 Years? No, That’s a False Claim

The video shows a man, identified as Alexander, receiving treatment for a skin disease called psoriasis.

A video is being widely shared on social media with a claim that a saint, who had taken samadhi, in Tamil Nadu’s Valliyur nearly 300 years ago, has been found alive.

(Photo: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

CLAIM

A video is being widely shared on social media with a claim that a saint, who had taken samadhi, in Tamil Nadu’s Valliyur nearly 300 years ago, has been found alive.

The caption shared along with the video reads: “यह है सिद्धार्थ योगी जिन्होंने 300 साल पहले तमिलनाडु के वल्लियुर में समाधि ली थी वल्लियुर मंदिर के लिए मिट्टी खोदते समय उन्हें जीवित पाया गया सिद्धार्थ योगासन में बैठे नजर आए थे ऐसा है भारत जिसकी दुनिया कल्पना भी नहीं कर सकती |”

[Translation: This is Siddharth Yogi, who had taken samadhi in Tamil Nadu’s Valliyur nearly 300 years ago. While excavation work was going on for the construction of a temple, he was found alive. The world can’t even imagine this.]

(Note: The Quint has decided not to reproduce the video due to its graphic nature.)

(Source: Twitter)

The video also has made its way to Facebook and even WhatsApp.

The Quint received a query about the video on its WhatsApp helpline number.

(Source: WhatsApp/The Quint)

TRUE OR FALSE?

The claim with which the video is being shared in completely false. In reality, the video shows a man, identified as Alexander, a citizen of Kazakhstan, receiving treatment for a skin disease called psoriasis.

The same video had gone viral and multiple news organisations had misreported the incident to be that of a bear attack.

However, when AFP Fact Check contacted the director of Aktobe Medical Centre, in the northwestern city of Aktobe in Kazakhstan, he confirmed the details of the case.

WHAT’S THE TRUTH?

On conducting a reverse image search on one of the keyframes of the video, we came across multiple news articles which had reported on the video, citing a ‘bear attack’.

A report in Daily Mail attributed the information to the local media and reported that the man was found in Russia’s Tuva region.

We also came across another news article published in ‘The Siberian Times’, a local Russian publication, titled ‘Man lives after bear breaks his spine and keeps him as food inside den’ on 26 June 2019.

However, at the end of the article, there was an update which added that the health ministry in Tuva had said that they couldn’t confirm the case and that the incident might have happened somewhere outside Tuva.

Screenshot of the update at the bottom of the article. (Source: The Siberian Times)

On searching Google with relevant keywords, we came across a story on AFP Fact Check, according to which the man’s name was indeed Alexander but he was not attacked by a bear. He was said to be suffering from a chronic skin disease.

As per the story, the video went viral after the doctor filmed it to send it to his friends.

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