Online video does not show late Indian actor Siddharth Shukla suffering a heart attack

Disturbing footage of a man experiencing a cardiac arrest does not show the late Indian actor Siddharth Shukla, as was falsely claimed on social media.

Social media buzzed with reports that Shukla, a popular television and film actor in India, had died in Mumbai on Sept 2 at the age of 40. The BBC reported that the cause of his death was unclear, but said the Indian press had reported Shukla died from a heart attack.

After the news broke, a video was tweeted with the caption “Actor #SiddharthShukla Dies Of an Heart Attack” and a Facebook post with 2,900 views described the video as “CCTV footage” of Shukla’s death.

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The video shows a man visibly unwell. He collapses at the end of the video.

A reverse-search showed that the video depicted a similar, but unrelated, event. Indian news websites reported on Aug 30, 2021 that the clip showed an unidentified man suffer a heart attack at a gym in the city of Bengaluru, known to many as Bangalore, capital of the southern state of Karnataka.

The footage was also posted on Facebook by a daily Hindi newspaper with a timestamp showing ‘25.08’, suggesting the video was filmed eight days before Shukla’s death.

An external fact check by The Quint also concluded that the video was a week old and said they had police confirmation the incident took place in Bengaluru.