By Sk Badiruddin
A doctored video showing two unrelated events of Bollywood actor Govinda delivering speech at Swaminarayan Temple in Gujarat and offering puja in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh is being circulated on social media with a false claim that he visited Bageshwar Dham in Madhya Pradesh.
The video has been edited to include visuals of self-styled godman Dhirendra Shastri popularly known as Bageshwar Dham Sarkar in the background.
Situated in MP's Chhattarpur, Bageshwar Dham attracts huge crowds and followers. Shastri claims to guess problems faced by his devotees apparently without them having told him anything. In a show broadcast by ABP News in January this year, Shastri claimed to know all the information about the channel's reporter Gyanendra Tiwari, without him having told the former anything. BOOM then checked Tiwari's profile on Facebook and found that all the information revealed by the godman is publicly available. Read BOOM's fact check here.
First part of the 3.10 minutes video shows actor Govinda delivering a speech in Hindi while Shastri is seen sitting in the background. Govinda shared his personal story about suffering from an illness related to tissue rupture and how he got cured miraculously after taking the name of a religious place. The video ends with a narration in Hindi about Govinda’s visit at Bageshwar Dham, when Govinda along with his wife were seen offering puja in a temple.
The video has been captioned in Hindi as “Govinda reached Bageswar Dham. Bageshwar Dham Sarkar”
(Original caption reads in Hindi: “गोविंदा पहुंचे बागेश्वर थाम”)
Watch the video here.
The same video has also been shared on YouTube and as Facebook reel.
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Fact Check
Video 1
BOOM ran a reverse image search and found that the first part of the video was streamed live on verified channel named 'Swaminarayan Bhagwan' on YouTube on November 12, 2019.
The video was titled as, “Film Actor Govinda | Vachanamrut Dwishatabdi Mahotsav | 12 Nov 2019 AM – Vadtaldham”
At3.09 minutes onwards Govinda can be seen delivering the same speech where he stated that he was suffering from a tissue rupture just after his mother's death.
According to the video description and headline the Shree Swaminarayan Temple is situated in Vadtal, Gujarat. Upon searching with keywords we found on November 12, 2019,TV9 Gujarati reported about Govinda’s visit to Swaminarayan Temple in Vadtal during Dev Diwali Celebration.
Below is a comparison between the viral video and the video streamed live in 2019.
Video 2
BOOM further ran a reverse image search with the keyframes from the last part of the video which led us to The Tribune report uploaded on November 3, 2020. The video has been titled as, “Govinda, wife Sunita pay obeisance at Himachal temple”
From 1 minute onwards one can see Govinda coming with his wife to visit the temple of Chamunda Devi, Kangra in Himachal Pradesh.
Govinda’s visit was also reported on The Tribune and Local outlets Live Times TV Himachal. An image of their visit also can be found here on Content Garden, site owned by Hindustan Times. Below is a comparison with screenshots from the viral video on Facebook and report on The Tribune.
BOOM has reached out to Govinda for a comment. The article will be updated as and when he responds.
BOOM has reached out to Govinda for a comment. The article will be updated as and when he responds.
We also did not find any credible news report suggesting that the actor visited Bageshwar Dham when searched on Google with relevant keywords.
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