Fact Check: Is this the photo of 'love jihad' victim Prerna Vyas?
A set of three images – one of a young girl identified as Prerna Vyas, the second of her wedding card, and third her dead body
By Tejal Sinha Published on 2 Oct 2021 7:45 AM GMT
Hyderabad: A set of three images – one of a young girl identified as Prerna Vyas, the second of her wedding card, and third her dead body – has gone viral on social media with the claim that the girl was a victim of "love jihad".
The photos are being shared with the caption, "1. Alive in the first photo, 2. Wedding card in the second photo, 3. No head in the third photo. Prerna Vyas has passed the last stage of love jihad. Result – "Death"." (translated)
The incident took place in Jodhpur, it is being claimed.
Fact Check
The claim is false. The post was viral in 2020 and people have started sharing it again on social media.
Image 1: Image of Telugu cinema actor who is alive and kicking
NewsMeter performed a Google reverse image search of the first photo which led us to a video uploaded on the YouTube channel Aditya Music on 19 September 2019. It is a song from the 2019 movie 'Prema Janta'. The actress, Sumaya Mohammed, is wearing similar clothes as the girl in the viral photo.
Further, we found that Sumaya Mohammed had shared the same viral photo on her Instagram account on 11 October 2019. We also verified that Sumaya is active on Instagram.
Image 2: Photo from 2018 incident in West Bengal
A Google reverse image search led us to a report by DNA from 12 September 2018 titled "Honour killing in Bengal: Man kills daughter for eloping with boy of different faith".
According to the report, the photo of the woman lying dead on the ground is the body of a Muslim girl who was allegedly murdered by her father. He reportedly strangled her, crushed her face with a stone, and dumped her body on the highway near Burdwan district in West Bengal.
The girl's body was recovered from a bush on the Nabagram Durgapur Expressway by the officials of Jamalpur police station in Burdwan East district. Her body was sent for post-mortem where it was found that two phone numbers were written on her body with mehndi. The police tracked down the numbers and nabbed Karan Singh who was in Mumbai. "When they showed him the picture of the girl, he recognized her and identified her as Jahana Khatoon, a resident of Muzaffarpur in Bihar," the report said.
NDTV had also reported the incident.
Image 3: Image of wedding card is from October 2019
A Google reverse image search led us to a photo uploaded by a Facebook user in October 2019 with the caption, "Very soon this Prerna Vyas aka Ayesha Khan will be seen crying on TV channels hiding her face in a dupatta." We did not find any more information about the wedding card.
However, we noticed that the wedding card was from 2019 and the photo of the dead woman is from 2018 which makes it evident that the image of the wedding card has no relation with the image of the woman found dead.
Therefore, the claim that the girl in the photo is Prerna Vyas who was a victim of love jihad is false. The three photos are not related to each other.
