Recently, a photo of a woman has been circulated on social media with the caption: “’My Abdul is very ‘special’, he understands nothing but love’ — and that is the reason for this outcome today. Another girl, trapped by Love Jihad, got entangled in the web of love, ran away, and got married. Not even a year after the marriage, Abdul’s real game began — beatings, torture, abuse, and mental torment. The girl whose face was once like a luscious apple is now flattened and battered like a dented tin can — it’s hard to recognize her! This girl has probably received just punishment for her actions — this is what should happen to these blind lovers. Before she could be chopped into pieces and packed in a sack, she ran away and took refuge with her mother, but her parents, seeing their daughter’s ugly mask, kicked her out of the house. Now the girl is in police custody, and Abdul has also been arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police. #LoveJihad”
In other words, the claim is that the photo shows a Hindu woman who was tortured in India for marrying a Muslim man. It is worth noting that the circulated photo shows marks resembling injuries on the woman’s face.
See posts circulated on Facebook with this claim here (archive), here (archive), and here (archive).
Fact-check
An investigation by the Rumor Scanner team found that the circulated photo is not of a Hindu woman tortured in India for marrying a Muslim man. In fact, the woman in the photo is an Indian content creator named Shweta Pundir, and the injury marks on her face are not real but were created using a Snapchat lens (filter). Shweta herself has confirmed this.
In investigating the photo circulated with the claim, it was found that the image was posted on August 1st on a Facebook account named ‘Shweta Pundir’. The caption of the photo reads, “He hits because he loves” (translated).
Observing the said Facebook account, it was confirmed that this is Shweta Pundir’s real account and the woman in the photo is indeed Shweta Pundir. A review of her Facebook account shows that on August 2nd, the day after posting the photo with the injury marks, she posted several more pictures in the same attire. However, these subsequent posts showed no signs of injury.
On the same night (August 2nd), in another posted video, the injury marks reappeared on Shweta’s face. In the video, she satirizes girls who, after being physically abused by their boyfriends or husbands, say, “He hit me because he loves me.” However, observing the video, it can be seen that as Shweta’s face moves, the injury marks also change or disappear abnormally, which is common in videos made using filters.
Furthermore, about two days later, on August 4th, she was seen posting a video and a photo with similar injury marks. Yet again, in another video post made an hour after the first video on the same day, in the same attire and location, no injury marks were visible.
Upon further investigation into such injury marks, a lens named ‘mmmooort9’ was found on the social media platform Snapchat. It should be noted that filter technology on Snapchat is called a lens. When a video is made using this lens, injury marks are automatically added to the face through technology. The investigation found several other videos made using this lens, where similar injury marks were added to the faces. Additionally, the video with the injury marks was also found on Shweta Pundir’s Snapchat account. This confirms that a Snapchat lens was used in the circulated photo.
Furthermore, a fact-check report on this matter was found on the website of the India-based fact-checking organization Newschecker, published on August 12th. The report also stated that the photo in question is not real but was created using a Snapchat lens. The report further mentioned that when Newschecker contacted Shweta Pundir, she denied the claim made with her photo, stating that the picture was created with a Snapchat lens and that she is completely fine.
Therefore, a photo created using a Snapchat lens (filter) has been circulated with the false claim that it shows a Hindu girl tortured in India for marrying a Muslim boy.
Sources
- Shweta Pundir – Facebook Post
- Shweta Pundir – Facebook Post
- Shweta Pundir – Facebook Post
- Newschecker – Muslim Lover Tortured Hindu Girl? Know the Truth Behind This Viral Love Jihad Claim
