A 50-year-old woman was recently gang-raped and murdered in Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun. All eyes are on the Uttar Pradesh administration once again with the news of yet another incident of a horrific rape in the state. Meanwhile, a picture of a woman is being shared on social media, with netizens claiming that this is a photo of the Badaun rape victim.
Twitter user Komal Meghwal tweeted this picture with a similar claim. Due to the sensitive nature of the case, Alt News is not including any link or picture in this article which may compromise the identity of the victim.
Facebook page ‘Bhim Army Rewari’ also shared the photo and accompanying claim.
Several other users have shared this picture on Facebook and Twitter.
Fact-check
The victim in the recent incident in Badaun is aged 50 years, while several users claimed that the age of the deceased woman in the viral photo is between 20 and 25 years.
We performed a reverse image search and found the viral image in a tweet dated December 24, 2018. The tweet stated that this picture was of a girl who had been murdered in Uttar Pradesh. In another tweet, the same picture was used in connection to the Unnao rape incident.
Alt News did some more digging and found a Patrika report dated December 25, 2018. According to the report, “This case is related to the Akohri village under the jurisdiction of the Maurawan Police Station. A female resident of the village (Alt News has redacted the girl’s identity) had gone to the farm to relieve herself. After she had not returned for a while, her relatives went to look for her and found Goldie’s body about 500 meters away from the house. There were bruises on her body. As soon as the information about the dead body was received, there was a ruckus in the village. Local police inspected the scene of the crime. The Superintendent of Police also inspected the scene and interacted with the family. Her relatives have demanded action against two men, named Subhash and Satish, from the village. Speaking on the case, Station officer Mourava said that the case has been registered and that they would take action against the culprits soon.”
According to a Gaon Connection report dated December 26, 2018, the incident occurred on December 24. The accused, Satish Yadav, was arrested in the case. Yadav confessed to the crime during his interrogation. This story contains a video report, which has visuals resembling the viral image.
Therefore, a photo of a female murder victim from a December 2018 case in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao was misidentified by social media users as the victim of the recent rape and murder incident in the state’s Badaun region.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
