Many of you might have come across videos of a man who calls himself Grandmaster Shifuji Shaurya Bharadwaj on Facebook, Twitter and also circulated on WhatsApp Groups. Most of his videos and photos which have been uploaded by his channel project him as an Elite Army officer. In most of his videos and photographs, he is seen sporting combat attires which includes the Balidan insignia, Marcos badge, a stiff (worn around the neck), Maroon beret (a soldier’s cap), and a pointed moustache (to look like Shahid Bhagat Singh).
Besides projecting himself as an elite officer, on his Linkedin page, he has also claimed to have been made the Brand Ambassador of Madhya Pradesh and having won an International Award called “Living legend – True patriot”. Additionally, on his Linkedin page, he claims to know 16 languages and much more.
Many have mistaken him to be an officer of the Indian army based on his claims in many of his videos, Instagram posts, Blogs, Interviews and Facebook page. In fact, he even claims to be the next Bhagat Singh. In most of his videos on Youtube (many removed now) and in his official channel, he claims to be “Special Commando Trainer for Combatants of the Army’s Fighting Regiment”. However, he has also staked claim to be many other things such as “Special Mentor for the Mumbai QRT Commandos”, “Special Anti Urban Terrorist Tactics Instructor for Mumbai Police” and “Special Commandos VIP Protection skills of the Elite Special Forces”. That is like ninja level expertise, though most of us wouldn’t have ever heard of such positions.
In articles published in Mumbai and Pune Mirror, he claims to have spent 29 years in the military, training the Hawk Commandos and Special Armed Forces. After this stint of 29 years, he retired and since then he has been teaching women the art of self-defence for the past 15 years. That makes it a total of 44 years of experience. For a guy who looks to be in 45-50 years range, he probably started training the Indian army while he was still in his nappies.
However, a few people started seeing through the charade, one Abhishek Shukla from Ahmedabad started exposing this Shifuji by a posting series of videos. Search for “Shifuji Shaurya Bhardwaj EXPOSED| STOLEN VALOUR” on youtube to see some of those videos. Finally, Shifuji was forced to confess that he isn’t from Armed Forces. He now has removed many videos from his facebook page and has taken down his official page (but claims, it’s hacked).
Well, though the bubble might have burst now, Shifuji new the exact recipe of how to fool the middle class Indians on social media who will buy anything that is propagated in the name of the army ( “Soldier bol diya.. Argument Khattam!!”). That’s exactly why his youtube videos are full of bravado, profanity, hate against certain sections of the society, against Pakistan. He knew how that works so well to fool people these days. And boy, did people fall for it!
It first started with media houses inviting him for interviews, introducing him as an Army officer. He was invited to television debates on Surgical strike, to discuss the quality of food in army camps, to discuss Uri Attack, about his Kargil war experience and what not. Was media foolish enough not to know his reality? Hard to believe. TV Media these days have their sole focus on TRP and they would project anybody who brings them TRP, whether it is Grandmaster Shifuji or imports like Tarak Fateh. And his fame grew leaps and bounds. He started getting offers from Bollywood like in the film ‘Baaghi’. Zee promoted him as “Shifuji Shaurya Bhardwaj: The living legend who played Tiger Shroff’s trainer in ‘Baaghi’ ”
A few from Bollywood have now hired him as their trainer, thanks to the “Soldier Card” he played.
Now the President of Ex-Servicemen federation of Uttar Pradesh, Major Ashish Chaturvedi, has filed a complained against Shifuji for posting images and videos wearing Army uniform and Special Forces uniform and for claiming to be an army officer.
The website Lallantop recently published an article exposing him. Soon after the article went viral, our Brave Soldier Shifuji took down his website and has finally confessed that he wasn’t ever in the Army.
Now that fake soldier bit is exposed, wonder what next Shifuji could do next?
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