A video of a few men collecting cash from what seems like a temple donation box is being shared on social media, claiming that these visuals show the donation box of the recently opened Ayodhya Ram Mandir. Let’s fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: The viral video shows the donation box in Ayodhya Ram Mandir with donations from the first day of opening the temple.
Fact: The viral video has been on the internet since at least 16 January 2024, much before the Ayodhya Ram Mandir opened on 22 January 2024. This video was shot in Rajasthan’s Sanwariya Seth temple. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To learn more about the viral clip, we performed a reverse image search on the internet using a few of its keyframes, which led us to an Instagram post that contained the same video, which was uploaded on 16 January 2024, almost a week before the consecration ceremony of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on 22 January 2024. This contradicts the viral claim that the video shows the visual of a donation box on the first day of worship at Ram Mandir.
The video was uploaded by a user named Nitin Vaishnav, with a video description in Hindi that translates to ‘🌹Shri Sanwaliya Seth🌹:- This time a record amount of 12 crore 69 lakh cash donations came out.’ Nitin uploaded many videos shot at the Shri Sanwariya Seth temple, which is located in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, on his Instagram page. Through a further keyword search on the internet, we also found news articles from January 2024, i.e. this month, that reported the donation amount received at the Sanwariya Seth temple.
Furthermore, Nithin can also be seen wearing a similar red colour kurta in another Instagram video uploaded on 11 December 2023 during the counting of donation amounts received in the Sanwariya Seth temple at that time.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Sanwariya Seth temple in October of 2023; in a video uploaded on his verified Youtube channel, we can see a sculpture on a wall at the entrance of ‘Gharbha Gudi,’ the main inner sanctum where the main idol of the temple, Sanwariyaji is located. In a video uploaded by Nitin, you can see the same idol and the sculpture on the wall.
Additionally, photos uploaded by a few users on Google Photos also show the same sculpture. This makes it clear that the video was indeed filmed at this location.
To sum up, a video of cash collection from a donation box filmed at Sanwariya Seth temple is falsely shared as visuals of a donation box filmed at the Ayodhya Ram Mandir on the first day after its opening on 22 January 2024.
