Lighthouse Journalism came across an image being widely shared on social media platforms. It was being claimed along with the image that one Sadhvi Rashmika has married a Muslim man. During the investigation we found the viral image to be edited. Viral claim is false.
Claim:
X user Moonjas-official shared the viral image on his profile with the viral claim.
Check the archive version of the claim here.
Other users too are sharing the image with the same claim.
Investigation:
We started the investigation by running a reverse image search on the image being widely shared on the social media platforms.
We found the image uploaded last year on a Facebook profile named, ‘Balmukund Acharya Hathoj Dham’.
Here the text on the photo said that the image is from an election office. And the person seen on the left is a man and not a woman.
The person seen on the left is BJP’s Balmukund Acharya.
The controversy started probably when Acharya met the owner of Muslim-owned hotel in Jaipur after his drive to shut non-vegetarian shops in his constituency.
Further we also found the same Facebook page clarifying who the person seen in the picture was.
The text said that the man in the religious cap is Usman Chauhan, a person associated with BJP for a long time. They own a handloom store and earlier were office bearers of Minority Morcha and Muslim Rashtriya Manch. The page also noted that people are sharing false news claiming him to be the owner of MM Khan hotel.
We did find a few misleading posts claiming him to be a man running MM Khan hotel in Rajasthan.
We also found a few pictures uploaded on the Instagram profile of Balmukund Acharya Hathoj Dham, where the same man in the religious cap was seen.
The caption said that several office bearers of the Muslim community had gathered to meet Balmukund Acharya.
Conclusion: Edited picture of BJP leader Balmukund Acharya and another former office bearer Usman Chauhan shared with false claims. Viral image is fake.
