An old video of a pastor in Tamil asking Jesus Christ to bless Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Ministers Amit Shah and Nirmala Sitharaman is viral falsely claiming he prayed for their deaths.
BOOM found that the video is old, likely from 2024 and that the pastor's prayer in Tamil asks for political leaders to be blessed, not killed. We were able to verify that he used the words, Thodungappa in Tamil which literally translates to 'to touch', not the phonetically similar Kollungappa which means 'to kill'.
The video is viral with the claim, "Arrest everyone from this church who are involved in this life threatening slogan for PMO of India - Jesus, please kill Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, & Yogi Adityanath. Jesus, give us the strength to destroy the Ayodhya Ram temple and build a church..."
BOOM also received the video on our helpline number (7700906588) asking for verification
The claim further urges the UP Police & NIA to step in, saying it is a direct threat to the lives of these politicians and a national security issue.
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Fact-check
BOOM found that the video has been viral since January 2024 with the same claim being shared on Facebook and X again in January 2025. We also verified that the pastor asked for blessings for Prime Minister Modi and other political leaders and not for their death.
We first analysed the video and were able to confirm that it shows a prayer meeting being conducted in an Evangelical Church. The pastor in the video can be heard speaking in Tamil and naming PM Modi, Union Ministers Shah, Sitharaman and UP CM Yogi Adityanath.
We extracted the part of the audio where the leaders' names could be heard clearly, and found that the pastor uses the words, "thodunga" and "thodungappa" multiple times with their names. In Tamil, the literal translation of "thodunga" and "thodungappa" is 'to touch'. This word is phonetically similar to the terms "kollunga" which translates to "to kill".
The extracted part of the audio can be heard below :
BOOM then reached out to pastors in Tamil Nadu and Kerala who rubbished the false claim. The pastors first confirmed that Thodungappa is common parlance in prayer meetings held by Evangelical churches, especially in South India. And further said that, the pastor in the viral video asks for blessings for all politicians and then blessings specifically for the four ministers including PM Modi.
They also explained that the term while translating as, 'to touch', has come to denote 'to bless' or 'be blessed' - when asking for blessings during prayers. is asking for Jesus to bless all politicians and then asks for blessings specifically for the four ministers including PM Modi.
Using this we heard the full video and found that the pastor's prayer translates to, "Save the MPs and MLAs, touch Prime Minister Modi, touch Amit Shah, touch Nirmala Sitharaman touch Stalin, touch Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and also Jesus, let them know that you are the living God in Ayodhya..."
While BOOM could not independently verify the full context of the pastor's statements in the prayer, we were able to verify that he did not call for the death of the political leaders, instead asked for them to be blessed.
