Sick hoax: Picture of actor Jishnu Raghavan in hospital bed used to fuel rumours about his death

The News Minute | November 26, 2014 | 9.30 pm IST

Update- Jishnu Raghavan has passed away. Read here.

Death hoaxes passed around social media are nothing short of being cruel, and for strange reasons celebrities are always falsely 'declared dead', sometimes for no reason. Since Tuesday, rumours had been doing rounds about the health condition of Malayalam actor Jishnu Raghavan, accompanied with a picture of him in a hospital ICU.

The pictures were forwarded on many messaging platforms and social networking sites with messages that Jishnu was critical or no more. What makes this particular joke even worse is that Jishnu Raghavan is a cancer survivor, and the pictures were from a time he was hospitalised. Jishnu took to Facebook to confirm that all is well. "hi friends.... the pic thats floating in the social media is an old one taken after my first surgery in jan.. a mischief by some hospital staff as nobody else had access to ICU... it is sad someone had to spread such a horrible picture creating unnecessary confusion.... i am still on treatment but will be back to work soon... love you all, he said." But not everyone was as patient as Jishnu. “To the person who had the bright idea of taking such a picture on his/her phone and circulating it and fuelling rumours that even amounted to Jishnu no longer being with us...SHAME ON YOU...WHERE IS YOUR SELF RESPECT???” actor Prithviraj wrote as a response to the hoax.

The hoax post also said that Jishnu is affected with cancer, caused by heavy smoking. Similarly rumours that veteran actor Dileep Kumar had passed away was also recently doing the rounds, prompting his friends like Amitabh Bachchan to announce on social media that the messages were a hoax. This even forced Dileep Kumar to resume tweeting after 5 months to confirm that he is still alive. “Phone calls from all over the world. All night. Your love and prayers and Allah's blessings cannot be thanked enough, I plan to be regular on this medium. I've asked @faisalMouthshut to post what I dictate and read to me your messages!” he tweeted after a break of 5 months. Read: Aishwarya Rai and Manju Warrier sizzle and giggle in a new ad Read: Kerala state recommends Mohanlal for Padma Bhushan, animal activists oppose