Viral photos claim dead woman victim of ‘love jihad’, Haryana Police says body not identified

Photographs of dead woman, whose body was found in a suitcase, are being circulated on social media with a claim that she was a Hindu killed for 'refusing to accept Islam'.

One of the photographs of the dead woman that being circulated on social media | Twitter

New Delhi: Photographs of a woman’s dead body, found in a suitcase in Haryana’s Sirsa district, is being circulated widely on social media with a claim that she is a victim of ‘love jihad’.

Hindu fundamentalist groups coined the term ‘love jihad’ to refer to an alleged campaign by Muslims to convert Hindu girls by ‘trapping’ them in love.

Several users shared the woman’s photos on Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp with a caption that read, “Someone who used to stay in the heart of a jihadi, has now died in a suitcase. When the girl refused to accept Islam, she was packed in a suitcase dead.”

Twitter user ‘Dr Avni’ shared the pictures Sunday, which were retweeted by over 2,200 people and liked by 4,200.

Another user, ‘Alka Shrivastava’, shared the images with the same caption and used the hashtag ‘#LoveJihad’. Her tweet was shared more than 1,300 times and had 1,800 likes at the time of publishing this report.

The pictures are also being circulated on WhatsApp and Facebook.

Fact-check

The incident took place in Sirsa’s Ding area where a suitcase was found Saturday in the Ban Mandori canal, which flows from Phoolkan village in the district. The woman’s dead body was found stuffed inside the suitcase.

The Ding station house officer told SM Hoaxslayer that the body had not been identified yet and has been kept in the mortuary for identification.

Local reports also indicate that the cause of the woman’s death has also not been ascertained yet. A two-day-old report in local newspaper Punjab Kesari said the woman was strangulated and her body was dropped into the canal.

A Dainik Bhaskar report, published on 10 October, also noted that the woman’s pictures were put on social media to identify her.

In collaboration with SM Hoaxslayer