The rumor of Takhti’s murder intensified after the 1979 revolution, and revolutionary groups claimed that members of SAVAK had murdered Takhti. In 1979, the “Peace Mojahedin Organization” accused Ali Abdoh of Takhti’s murder.
In Farvardin 1398, Alireza Zakani, a former representative of the people of Tehran in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, called Takhti’s suicide a rumor and claimed that Takhti had been “martyred.” He said: “I heard that Azizi had said here that the late Takhti had committed suicide. I heard from my father, who knew the late Takhti closely and who said at the funeral and in the funeral home that he was martyred. My father was responsible for organizing the late Takhti’s funeral for nearly three decades after the revolution. I am saying this from my father, who was in this movement.”
At that time, the news of Takhti’s death was announced on the radio, newspapers, and television, and people spread the news of Jahan Pahlevan’s passing by word of mouth. Not even a few minutes after Takhti’s body was found, the whole of Tehran became aware of this tragedy and people were plunged into grief and mourning. The news spread throughout the cities, and within two hours, thousands of people from the alleys and markets began to move towards the forensic medicine. School girls and boys and students closed their classes and headed to the courthouse. Students chanted slogans in the streets and even demanded punishment for those responsible or for Takhti’s possible killers.
Kayhan Verzeh, the only sports magazine in Iran at the time, responded to Takhti’s death with the headline: “The Lion’s Heart Was Bloody.”
After the news of Gholamreza Takhti’s death was published, seven people in different cities in Iran committed suicide, the most gruesome of which was a butcher in Kermanshah who hanged himself from a cane. Before his death, he had posted a large note on the window of his shop stating, “The world cannot survive without the world champion.”
