A collage of three photos - two of them showing model Poonam Pandey while a third photo showing an injured woman - is viral on social media with captions incorrectly identifying the latter as Pandey.
The caption with the Facebook posts claim that Pandey's husband Sam Ahmed Bombay assaulted her.
BOOM found that while Pandey had been recently hospitalised after her husband allegedly assaulted her, the third photo in the collage - that of an injured woman - is not that of Pandey.
Also read CGI Video Of Aircraft Flying Out From Under A Bridge Viral As Real Event
According to news reports, model-actor Poonam Pandey has been in news recently when she was admitted to a Mumbai hospital after receiving injuries on her head, face and eyes. Pandey's husband Sam Bombay was arrested by a team of Mumbai police on November 8 after Pandey accused him of assaulting her.
The Facebook posts are viral in this backdrop.
The collage has been shared by a Facebook user with a Hindi caption translating to, "this is Poonam Pandey who keeps making indecent remarks against Hindutva, Hindus and Hindu gods and goddesses. Trying to be a secular, she married Shamshad Ali aka Sam Bombay. Later, Shamshad thrashed her so much that her jaw was shattered, her neck and eyes received injuries too. She is admitted in hospital now. #LoveJihadIsReal".
(Hindi: ये पूनम पांडे है जो अक्सर हिंदुत्व, हिंदुओं को हिंदू देवी देवता पर अभद्र टिप्पणी करती रहती है। सेकुलरिज्म की चुल्ल मिटाने इसने शमशाद अली उर्फ सैम बॉम्बे से निकाह किया। चुल्ल मिटने पर शमशेद ने इसे इतना कुटा कि जबड़ा टूट गया आंख पर चोट आई गर्दन में मोच आई अभी अस्पताल में भर्ती है। #LoveJihadIsReal)
Click here to view the post.
The collage of pictures has been shared from multiple Facebook pages and Twitter handles with similar claim.
Also read Hoax Message Claims Japan Has Banned Microwaves As They Cause Cancer
Fact Check
BOOM found that two images in the collage are that of Poonam Pandey and her husband Sam Bombay. We did a reverse image search on the third picture, that of an injured woman lying on a hospital bed.
The reverse image search did not yield any result initially. We then changed the caption suggested by Google in the reverse image search to Poonam Pandey and found a YouTube video from 2018. The viral picture is a screenshot from this video.
The video was uploaded on YouTube on September 24, 2018 with a caption reading 'Poonam pandey | arsha pandey hospital viral video'.
The 57-second long clip shows the injured woman speaking to someone recording the video.
We compared a screenshot from the YouTube video with the photo of the injured woman in the viral Facebook post and found them to be one and the same.
Taking cue from the video, BOOM did an internet search with Hindi words 'पूनम पांडेय अर्शा पांडेय'' and found several Hindi news reports about a murder case from Haldwani, Uttarakhand reported in 2018.
A report published in Hindi daily Amar Ujala on September 2, 2018 stated that a woman Poonam Pandey was killed in Haldwani's Gora Padav area in August 2018 and her daughter Arsha Pandey was brutally assaulted during a house robbery incident.
News reports further stated that in a robbery attempt at a businessman's house in Gora Padav on August 28, robbers shot dead the businessman's wife and grievously injured their daughter who tried to resist the attempt.
A Times of India report identifies the deceased woman as Poonam Pandey and her daughter as Asha Pandey.
We also found a Dainik Jagran report which carried a similar image that is now viral as Poonam Pandey. The Hindi headline with the report translates to 'Arshi discharged from hospital, police protection at home'.
(Hindi: अर्शी अस्पताल से डिस्चार्ज, घर पर रहेगा पुलिस का पहरा)
Also read Video Of Vehicle Explosion Due To Firecrackers Falsely Linked To Electric Scooters
BOOM was unable to independently identify the name of the injured woman seen in the picture as different news reports have identified her as Asha Pandey, Arsha Pandey and Arshi Pandey.
However, we were able to ascertain that the picture in old, and the woman seen in it is not Poonam Pandey.
