Video of Pakistani Wrestler Peddled as Dhirendra 'Bageshwar' Dham
BOOM found that the man in the video is Pakistani wrestler Ghulam Hussain Pathan, not Madhya Pradesh's self styled godman Dhirendra Shastri.
A video of a man winning a wrestling match is circulating on social media with captions misidentifying him as Madhya Pradesh's self-styled godman Dhirendra Shastri of Bageshwar Dham.
BOOM found that the video is at least two years old and shows Pakistani wrestler Ghulam Hussain Pathan defeating another wrestler in a match.
Dhirendra Shastri started gaining popularity when he claimed to solve people's problems through the concept of "Divya Shakti", or divine force. His powers have been challenged by many, including the Maharashtra Andhashradha Nirmoolan Samiti. Shastri is based in Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, and is the head of Bageshwar Dham, a temple of Lord Hanuman.
Shastri, who is popularly known as Bageshwar Dham Sarkar, attracts huge crowds, claiming he has the ability to guess problems of his subjects without being told about the same. BOOM had earlier fact checked claims about an ABP reporter who endorsed Shastri and his abilities and run an entire show on him. BOOM found that all the information revealed by the godman is already present in the ABP reporter's Facebook profile.
Read BOOM's fact check here.
The video is being shared on social media with the caption, "Even in the arena, see how the priest of Bageshwar Dham, Pandit Dhirendra Krishna Shastri beats the wrestler in the arena."
(Original text in Hindi: "अखाड़े में भी धोबी पछाड़- बागेश्वर धाम के पुजारी, पंडित धीरेंद्र कृष्ण शास्त्री अखाड़े में कैसे धोबी पछाड़ मारते हैं, देख लीजिए.")
Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.
Click here to view the tweet.
The video is also viral on Facebook.
Click here to view.
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the man in the video is Pakistani wrestler Ghulam Hussain Pathaan, and not Dhirendra Shastri.
A reverse image search of keyframes from the video on Yandex led us to a video where the individual wrestling looked similar to the one in the viral video.
Click here to view.
The video was uploaded by Sachal TV, and the title mentioned Ghulam Hussain Pathan. Using this information, we searched for videos of Pathan and found the same viral video.
The portion from 1:52 has been clipped from this video and made viral to claim that it shows Dhirendra Shastri defeating a man while wrestling
Sanchal TV's channel included several videos on Ghulam Hussain Pathan, from which we were able to know more about his background.
Based in Sindh, Pathan followed in his father's footsteps after his retirement and took up wrestling. Considered one of Pakistan's most promising wrestlers, Pathan responded to the challenges he was receiving on social media and said he would be happy to accept them. He also spoke about the matches he has played both nationally and internationally, and about the future of the sport in Pakistan.
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