GONE VIRAL… OR MAYBE BACTERIAL

Indian Chief Minister’s ‘Holy Water’ Stunt Backfires Badly

Although Punjabi officials insist their chief state minister was taken to the hospital for a regular check-up, the medical visit occurred two days after the viral video was posted.

The chief state minister of Punjab, India was airlifted to a hospital Tuesday with a severe stomach ache after drinking water from a polluted holy river in a viral video stunt, according to The Indian Express. In the video, which was first tweeted by his political party, the Aam Aadmi Party, Bhagwant Mann is seen scooping water directly from the river and drinking almost the whole cup amid cheers from the crowd. The party’s caption read that Mann downed “holy water at Sultanpur Lodhi, the land touched by Guru Nanak Sahib’s [the Sikh religion’s founder] feet.” Although Punjabi officials insist Mann was later taken to the hospital for a regular check-up, the medical visit occurred two days after the video was posted, and the Kali Bein River is known to be polluted. In fact, Mann drank the water during a campaign to clean up the polluted waterway, the Independent reports. Because of the video, people started linking the dirty water to his mysterious illness, which, again, his office denies even happened.