He Died In A Police Encounter. The Internet Resurrected Him As A Martyr

On June 21, four days after Bharat Tiwari was shot by police in Bhojpur, Bihar, an AI-generated video appeared on Instagram. In it, the 30-year-old from Bilauti village arrives in heaven and finds Bhagat Singh waiting.

"Greetings, Bharat Tiwari. I am happy here in heaven. Tell me, what is happening in my India?"

"Bhagat Singh ji, I was following you, fighting against the corrupt system, but I was killed."

"No problem, my brave one. Ideas and sacrifices can never be forgotten."

The video had 1.6 million views when Decode reported it to Meta. The platform took it down for violating its community standards. A spokesperson told Decode on background that the platform removes AI-generated content that violates its policies, like any other content.

Bharat Tiwari spent years building a Facebook following in Bhojpur, issuing ultimatums to the district administration, live-streaming confrontations with police, threatening officials by name, and firing a pistol on camera. His death, in a disputed encounter that Bihar's Chief Minister has since ordered a judicial inquiry into, gave the internet a story it could use.

What it built from that story, and what Bharat's own posts show about who he was, sit very far apart.

The Death

The facts of Bharat Tiwari's death are still contested.

A day before he was shot, on June 16, police had issued a press release describing Bharat as mentally unstable and said they had begun proceedings to admit him to a mental hospital. That same morning, police visited his home — a moment captured in a photograph that would later go viral. The photo was of Bharat sitting on a cot, holding a pistol.

On June 17, around 9:30 am, Bharat went live on Facebook for the last time. In the video, he can be seen talking to a police officer, who assures him his demands have been accepted. Bharat then hands over his pistol. A constable rushes to pick it up. The video ends.

Police issued a press release later that day claiming that STF and police personnel had surrounded Bharat to apprehend him, that he opened fire first, and that they fired in self-defence, hitting him in the leg.

He died during emergency treatment at a hospital in Patna.

Locals staged widespread protests, accusing police of murder. On June 20, Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary ordered a judicial inquiry. The Bhojpur SP Office told Decode that cognizance has been taken regarding the content being shared on social media and that investigation is underway. The case related to Bharat's death is in court. Police declined to provide further details.

Bharat's elder brother Vasant Tiwari, 34, told Decode: "If the police thought he was mentally unstable, they should have admitted him to a mental hospital. They should not have fired bullets."

The Martyr

The internet did not wait for the inquiry.

Within days of the killing, a parallel Bharat Tiwari had been assembled online — one composed entirely of grief, solidarity, and projection. Songs went viral across YouTube and Instagram. One goes like, "Bhagat Singh bankar aaya tha ek krantikari…system ne ki gaddari (A revolutionary came embodying the spirit of Bhagat Singh... but the system betrayed him)." Another viral song’s lyrics are, "Fir se jhalak dikhane ko voh Bhagat Singh fir aaya tha, seene par goli khakar Bharat Tiwari naam bataya tha (Bhagat Singh returned…having taken a bullet to the chest, he said his name is Bharat Tiwari)."

A Bhojpuri track declared: "Bhagat Singh jaisan rahle krantikari ho, ki Bharat Tiwari ho."

Images circulated showing him alongside Bhagat Singh and Che Guevara. One photomontage placed beside each other two images of men in custody: the famous photograph of Bhagat Singh handcuffed — secretly taken by police during an interrogation after his first arrest in 1927 — and the June 16 image of Bharat sitting on a cot with a pistol.

The campaign was not spontaneous. Several caste identity-based groups — Brahmin Samaj, Brahmin Samaj Ekta, and Brahmin Samaj Sangathan — along with brahmin influencers and AI content creators, played a prominent role in driving it.

One slogan went particularly viral: "Jiyo Tiwari Janeudhari, Jiyo Tiwari, Bharat Tiwari." The campaign reached Punjab, where farmers protesting against VB-G RAM G and the state government allowed Bharat Tiwari posters bearing Bhagat Singh's image to be displayed in solidarity.

According to media reports, the Patna Cyber Police Station registered an FIR against 30 social media accounts for creating inflammatory AI-generated content, posting threatening material, and sharing misleading and fabricated videos in connection with the case.

Union Minister and Gaya MP Jitan Ram Manjhi added political weight to the moment, with a post on X, "When a Dalit is killed in an encounter, people say 'he was a Naxalite.' When a Muslim is killed in an encounter, they say 'he was a terrorist.' The same people are now questioning Bharat Tiwari's encounter…."

Vasant, Bharat’s brother, told Decode, "Bharat's thinking was like Bhagat Singh's. He believed he would never allow anything wrong to happen. He wanted to raise his voice against injustice."

He was attached to Bhagat Singh. Just open his Facebook and you'll understand why people are calling him Bhagat Singh."

We did open his Facebook. What we found is more complicated.

The Posts

Bharat's Facebook was his primary public interface — a running log of demands, grievances, and escalating threats that stretches back years.

His political journey began as an attempt to be a poster boy for the Hindu right. On February 2, 2023, he started a foot march from his village in Bilauti to Bageshwar Dham in Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, in support of Dhirendra Shastri's demand for a Hindu Rashtra. He carried a saffron flag and a poster supporting Shastri. On February 24, he reached Bageshwar Dham and posted a selfie with Shastri.

During the march, he told a reporter: "This march is in support of Hindu Rashtra and Bageshwar Baba. The country is facing two wars — a war of dharma and a war of adharma. The irreligious have taken over. We will not allow Ghazwa-e-Hind. Hindus have awakened."

Days later, on February 6, he posted a claim that caste discrimination in India was the "legacy of invaders" — specifically Mughals — and not something rooted in Hindu scripture.

"Our scriptures never mention untouchability or caste discrimination," he wrote. "If it were otherwise, Lord Ram would not have eaten Shabari's berries." This claim runs against the textual record: the Rigveda's Purusha Sukta and the Bhagavad Gita both contain explicit descriptions of a four-varna hierarchy determined by birth.

It also runs against Bhagat Singh. Writing in the journal Kirti in May 1928, Singh argued that Sanatan Dharma actively supported caste discrimination and that anyone who refused to oppose it "should quietly sit at home." He placed his faith not in a Hindu nation but in what he called India's "shared nationality" — writing separately that communal riots were a tool of those who wanted to keep the poor divided.

Historian Syed Irfan Habib, author of To Make the Deaf Hear: Ideology and Programme of Bhagat Singh and His Comrades, told Decode: "To invoke Bhagat Singh is quite fashionable but we trivialise him each time we do it."

"Bhagat Singh and his fellow revolutionaries stood for a certain ideological vision — they wanted a secular, pluralistic and caste oppression-free India. They wanted to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. Mere freedom from the British wasn't their goal."

After returning from Bageshwar Dham, Bharat Tiwari shifted registers. He began advocating for development work in his village — waterlogging relief for flood-affected families resettled in Bilauti, accountability over the Nal-Jal Yojana's implementation — and clashing regularly with the local administration. His brother Vasant said Bharat had been involved in social and religious activity for a decade.

The escalation was gradual, then sudden.

On December 26, 2024, he first declared "war" against the Chief Minister and the Bhojpur administration on Facebook, vowing to sacrifice himself. Ahead of a proposed CM Nitish Kumar visit on January 15, 2025, he announced he would sacrifice himself in Ara — then postponed when the visit didn't materialise. By February 2025, his posts had shifted from sacrifice to armed confrontation. On June 26, 2025, he announced he would "encounter" the Jagdishpur SDM on July 10, and then the CM.

On June 3, 2026, he shared a video of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath with the thumbnail: "Those who don't listen to words will surely listen to bullets." Bharat began repeating the line in his own videos.

On June 7, he gave the administration four days to act on the waterlogging demand. When no action came, he posted on June 14 threatening to kill the Jagdishpur SDM. On June 15, he gave the government two more days — holding a pistol on camera and firing it as a warning.

When that deadline expired on June 17, police moved in.

By that evening, Bharat was dead.

Not Quite Bhagat Singh

The internet chose Bhagat Singh. Bharat's own Facebook suggests a man with shifting, often contradictory enemies.

On June 15, the same day he issued his final ultimatum to the government, he posted: "All traitors and anti-nationals who want to break the country, divide it, establish another religion's rule — like Ghazwa-e-Hind, Islamic Rashtra — you will only succeed if you survive."

On June 7, he posted a video laughing at students protesting the NEET paper leak, calling them "traitors linked to terrorist organisations." "Cockroach Janata Party, sala, these are all traitors. They are termites. If the government can't handle them, give me a chance. All such people working with terrorist organizations — I'll have them cut down and disposed of, no one will know."

Bhagat Singh, writing in 1931, described revolution as "a complete transformation of the existing social structure" aimed at the establishment of socialism, explicitly directed against capitalists and colonial rulers. Bharat's named enemies on his own page included Muslim citizens, student protesters, and anyone he marked as anti-national.

His language was also routinely degrading. He regularly used "chapri" — a casteist slur — alongside "sala." In one post, he explained his use of "sala" by claiming the sisters of those in power were his lovers. Addressing the CM directly, he wrote: "Sala, you better understand, and make all your chapris understand not to act cheap. Stop tormenting my lovers and send them to me. Got it, sala gadha."

No matter who Bharat Tiwari was in real life, the AI heaven video, the photomontages, the martyrdom songs, and the caste group campaigns took a genuinely disputed, troubling encounter killing and produced from it a figure stripped of all contradiction: a pure revolutionary, a new Shaheed.