Screenshots of tweets featuring images of a Malaysian couple have gone viral on social media with fake claims that they are in an incestuous relationship, where a woman married her son after the death of her husband.
BOOM found two catfish Twitter accounts that pretended to be one 'Rajashree Selvakumar' and tweeted photos of the couple with a fake narrative of a taboo relationship between the two.. The accounts stole photographs of Malaysia-based husband-wife physiotherapists Rselva Rajandra and Prithylasmi Selvarajah.
We reached out to Rajandra, who confirmed that the photographs were of his and his wife Prithylasmi and were stolen from the latter's social media accounts. "We have been getting calls from friends who informed us about our photographs being misused on the internet. It has been a very disturbing moment for us," distraught Rajandra told BOOM,
On August 18, one Rajashree Selvakumar started trending on social media platforms with netizens ridiculing the purported incestuous relationship of Selvakumar with her 'son'. BOOM was able to trace two Twitter accounts, which have since been deleted, misusing the images of the Malaysian couple to peddle the bizarre incestuous claim.
The bio of both the handles claimed that Selvakumar had married her own son and the couple had been 'blessed with a happy life.'
Earlier BOOM had tracked down a medical student whose photos were misused to create a fictitious Dr Aisha, a catfish Twitter account posing as a frontline doctor who died of COVID-19. Read the fact-check here.
Further, one viral tweet consisted of two images of the couple with a text that claims the fictional Selvakumar has a three year old son from the incestuous relationship. It reads, "My 1st husband died when my son was just 12 years old and my age was 30. we both were living together and to me surprise my darling son proposed me to marry me when he finished his college and after few months i agreed and we married in 2016. now we have a 3 year old son."
The screenshot was shared by multiple social media users. The posts are archived here, here and here.
Fact Check
BOOM found replies to a few Facebook posts with a screenshot clarification of a Malayasia-based Facebook user named Trainer Singh who said the viral images belong to one Rselva Rajandra and Prithylasmi Selvarajah. We found
Singh's tweet and Facebook post. Below is a screenshot of the same.
The post is archived
here.
We then reached out to Rselva Rajandra who confirmed that it is him with his wife in the images shared in the catfish accounts.
Rajandra said, "We have been receiving multiple calls since yesterday after the screenshots of the tweets were viral. These images were clicked in 2017 during our India visit. They were part of our pre-wedding shoot."
The couple runs a physiotherapy centre, Wellborne Physio Centre, in Malaysia's Petaling Jaya for the past seven years and have been shaken after their images were all over the internet.
Disturbingly, one catfish account rightly identified the couple's occupation. "It is bizarre that our photos can be used to claim we are in an incest. We have cordial relationship with people from the same profession and otherwise. I don't know who could do this," Rajandra added. The couple has decided to lodge a complaint with the Cyber Security department of Malaysia.
We also found the article published on April 2, 2020 by Varnam, that was cited by Trainer Singh in his Facebook post. The website focuses on news and events in the Malaysian Indian community.
BOOM has removed the archived links of the catfish accounts following an email by the couple.