Many conspiracy theories have been woven around the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput and his ex-manager Disha Salian. The most recent one links actor Sooraj Pancholi with the duo.
Several users on the internet shared pictures of Pancholi with his friends, identifying one of them as Salian, to counter the claim that he didn't know her. However, we found that the images are not of Salian but Pancholi’s friend, Anushri Gaur.
THE CLAIM
The claims surfaced on the internet after Pancholi clarified that “he had never met Disha Salian”. Several users then shared these pictures and questioned Pancholi.
WHAT WE FOUND
We found that the person who can be seen with Sooraj Pancholi in the first image is his friend, Anushri Gaur, while in the second image the actor has been clicked with designer Sonaakshi Raaj.
IMAGE 1
On 5 August, the actor took to Instagram to refute claims by the media that he was photographed with Disha Salian, and said the person in the photograph is his friend Anushri Gaur.
“Is this the media we are supposed to trust?? That girl in the picture which was clicked in 2016 is not Disha Salian; that is my friend Anushri Gaur who doesn’t even live in India,” he wrote.
Replying to Sooraj’s Instagram post, Anushri Gaur wrote, “Thanks for posting the truth.”
We compared the viral image with the images of Anushri Gaur and Disha Salian and found that the person in the viral image is indeed Pancholi’s friend Anushri Gaur.
IMAGE 2
We conducted a reverse image search on Google and were directed to an Instagram post which pointed out that the woman in the picture, alongside Sooraj Pancholi and Kiara Advani, is designer Sonaakshi Raaj Merani.
Next, we searched for Sonaakshi Raaj Merani on Google and found several news reports which carried her image.
Evidently, old images of Sooraj Pancholi with multiple people are being shared on social media to fuel the theory that he was linked to Sushant’s ex-manager Disha Salian.
(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)