False: BSF soldier from viral "Jiyo aur Jeene Do" video is dead.

By: Rahul Adhikari
August 26 2022

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Context:

A video is being shared on social media claiming that Border Security Force (BSF) soldier Rajendra Singh Bhati was recently killed. Two visuals can be seen in the viral video one above the other. In one visual, a uniformed soldier is talking with civilians, and a dead soldier's photo is in the bottom half. Social media users claimed that the soldier who was talking with locals a few days back was killed recently. The caption of one such Facebook post read, "Sir's video was posted recently, and today Rajendra Singh Bhati sir became a martyr. Sat Sat Naman." 

In fact:

Research suggests that the viral video can be traced back to a vlogger who published a video on YouTube. On August 16, 2022 a local YouTube vlogger uploaded a video of his visit to the India-Bangladesh border in the Nadia district, West Bengal. The video shows he interacted with the BSF jawans and spoke to one BSF soldier Virendra Singh. The vlogger made a complete video of his time spent at the border and uploaded it on his channel—"0.2 PRASEN VLOGS." The soldier's interview caught public attention, and it started doing rounds on the internet. Soon enough, only the soldier’s bit from the vlog was shared as a reel that went viral. Eventually, some users added another soldier's photo to the video and shared it, claiming that one Rajendra Singh Bhati had died after his video went viral.

On August 23, 2022, the vlogger uploaded another video clarifying that BSF jawan Virendra Singh's death was false news. He stated that he is in touch with Singh. We found that the vlogger's name is Prasenjit Sarkar, and he is from Nadia district. While speaking to Logically, Prasenjit said, "I had uploaded a 10-minute-long vlog where a lot of things were recorded. People took the soldier's bit talking about his life and then shared it with false claims. I'm in touch with him, and he is very much alive. His name is not Rajendra Singh Bhati, and I call him Virendra Sir. He asked me to tell everyone that the news is baseless. He said he will take leave and meet me. We will do a live from my social media handles clarifying that he has not died."

Logically also exclusively accessed a screenshot of a Facebook post shared from Virendra Singh's account. Sharing his photo, the soldier wrote, "I am live (alive) please jhooti video band karo." He said he is alive and that people should not spread fake news about his death.

A reverse image search on the image shown in the viral video revealed that a Twitter handle @kunwarmanojsin shared a dead jawan's photo on September 30, 2019, and wrote, "Last Darshan of Veer Rajendra Singh Ji Bhati…India will remember the sacrifice of Veer Rajendra Singh." This photograph was wrongly shared with a video of Virendra Singh making people believe that the latter was also dead. According on a report published on Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar's website, one Lance Naik Rajendra Singh Bhati of the Indian Army was killed in Kashmir on September 28, 2019.

The verdict:

A video of a BSF soldier Virendra Singh, talking about his life was falsely shared claiming that he is Rajendra Singh Bhati who was killed in 2019. Hence, we have marked this claim false.