A collage of a newly-wed couple is doing the rounds on social media with communal spin. In the first image, the couple can be seen wearing Muslim wedding attire, while in the second image, they can be seen performing Hindu wedding rituals.
Giving these images a communal spin, many claim that a ‘Jain girl’ was lured and abducted by a Muslim man in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh. It further mentioned that after the incident 550 Jain shops and factories decided to terminate all Muslim employees, which left 1,800 Muslims jobless. As a result, the girl returned to her family in nine hours.”
A Facebook user shared this post with a description: “दक्षिण भारत में नेल्लोर में एक *मुस्लिम युवक* एक *जैन लड़की* को फुसलाकर भगा ले गया सुबह यह वाकया पता लगा और फिर दोपहर को जैन समाज की बैठक हुई, बैठक में बहुत ही गंभीर निर्णय लिया गया, 550 जैन दुकानों और फैक्टरीयों से मुस्लिमों को बोल दिया गया कि तुम्हारी अभी से ही इस नौकरी से छुट्टी है ! आपको आज ही से आने की कोई जरूरत नहीं, आप लोग कोई और काम देख लो! थोड़ी देर बाद समाज के और लोगों ने एक के बाद एक जैन समाज को सहयोग व समर्थन दिया, शाम तक कुल 1800 मुसलमानों की नौकरियों पे नोबत आ गई, तो वो मुस्लिम समाज वाले उस लड़की को खुद ढ़ूंढ़कर सिर्फ 9 घण्टे के अंदर उसके घर सही सलामत छोड़कर आये, और अपने मुस्लिम लड़कों को सख्त हिदायत भी दी – कि गलती से भी इस इलाके के जैन और हिन्दू समाज की लड़की की तरफ ना देखें….भाइयों! ये होती है एकता की ताकत…”
This Facebook post can be seen here.
It is being widely shared on Facebook and X with a similar claim.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above claim, and found it to be false.
Running a Reverse Image Search, the NewsMobile team traced the same image in a NDTV report, dated March 28, 2017, with a title: “4 Weddings And A Hindu-Muslim Couple From Mumbai. #RelationshipGoals.” According to the report, Ankita and Faiz were couples during college time. They got married in four different ways, including an Islamic Nikah and a Hindu wedding, at the Verka Le Palms Resort in Goa.
Searching further, we came across the same images in a report by Schoopwhoop, dated March 27, 2017. According to the report, Ankita Aggarwal, a resident of Indore, Madhya Pradesh, and Faiz Rehman, a resident of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, were both students of IIM Indore. Both of them fell in love and then decided to get married. However, when they told their family about this, they opposed their marriage. Ankita’s parents were concerned about the practice of polygamy in Islam and that Faiz would be allowed to have four marriages. To ease their worries, Faiz decided to have four marriages, all of them with the one woman he loved. They exchanged varmalas in a small Ram mandir located at the foot of Mahalaxmi temple. After that, they got married under the Special Marriage Act, which does not allow Muslims to marry four times. Subsequently, they had a nikah and a Hindu wedding in Goa, surrounded by their close friends and family.
Nowhere does the report identify Ankita as Jain or abducted by Faiz. On further investigation, we found a press release issued by the District Police Office, Nelore, on the same issue in which they denied the viral claim mentioning it as fake.
Therefore, we can conclusively say that the viral claim of a Jain girl abducted by a Muslim man is false with no communal angle.
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