Rajinikanth not dead, says wife

Superstar Rajinikanth is fine and his death reports circulating since Friday are false, said his wife Latha on Saturday.

“I don’t know where these (death) rumours started from. These are false. He is in good health and is resting at home,” Latha told reporters.

Since Friday morning, social networking site Twitter was buzzing with the news that the 60-year-old actor, who was suffering from high fever and allergic bronchitis, has died. Within minutes, the news became the most searched item on Google.

Rajinikanth was hospitalised on May 5 evening with high fever and allergic bronchitis. By May 6, his fever had receded and doctors were treating the lung infection. Doctors said the he was still kept in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to avoid infection from visitors.

Reports said the actor was being treated in the ICU of the St. Isabel Hospital, Mylapore, for security reasons. No guests were allowed to meet him.

The star was advised at least a couple of days of rest. His daughter Aishwarya Dhanush said he would be spending a few more days in the hospital before going home.

Countless fans of the superstar prayed for the speedy recovery of the actor who was admitted second time in a week in a hospital. He was admitted earlier on Apr 29 owing to dehydration induced exhaustion.

After the phenomenal success of Robot (Endhiran), which was dubbed in Hindi as well, the southern actor has started working on his new film Rana with Deepika Padukone in Chennai.

He plays three roles in the film on the Mahurat sets of which he fell sick on April 29 and had to be hospitalized first.