Posts falsely claim late Indian actor Dilip Kumar donated his property to charity in the name of Islam

“Those who are crying over the demise of Mohammed Yusuf aka Dilip Kumar, open your eyes, he donated all his property to the Wakf Board and not to any temple,” reads a Facebook post published on July 8.

Under Islamic law, Wakf is property given in the name of God for religious and charitable purposes. India has a Central Waqf Council and individual states have Waqf boards that oversee this process and waqf properties.  

Mohammed Yusuf Khan was Kumar's birth name, before he adopted his Hindu stage name. Here is an Urdu-language interview in which he explains why he took this step.

Dilip Kumar, nicknamed Bollywood's 'Tragedy King', died on July 7 aged 98. His death sparked tributes from across Indian and Pakistani cinema, politics and sport.

He enjoyed a career that spanned more than 50 years and acted in nearly 60 films, including some of the most commercially successful hits of Indian cinema's golden age from the 1940s to the 1960s.

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( Uzair RIZVI)

The claim was shared by multiple Facebook and Instagram accounts, including here, here and here. 

Some versions of the misleading claim, for example here on Twitter, specified that the property Kumar had purportedly donated was worth some 98 crore rupees (13 million USD). 

The misleading tweet says: "Understand the chronology of the Muslims: Dilip Kumar's real name was Mohammed Yusuf Khan, but he changed his name and earned a lot of money. But at the time of his death, he did not gave away his 98 crore worth property to any NGO, orphanage or an old age home but to a Muslim religious institution Wakf Board." 

However, the claims are false.

Faisal Farooqui, Dilip Kumar's manager said the rumour was “false content”.

"There is absolutely no truth to these claims. They are false claims from fake social media accounts. I am firmly denying these claims about a 98 crore donation," he told AFP.

The CEO of the Maharashtra State Wakf Board -- which is responsible for wakf in Mumbai, where Kumar lived and died -- told Indian fact-checking website Boomlive that no such grant had been made by Dilip Kumar or his family. 

No mainstream Indian media have published reports about Kumar donating his property to a Muslim body.

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