Incident of Girl's Body Found on Yamuna Expressway Given a Communal Twist

The 21-year-old was allegedly shot dead by her parents, who did not approve of her intercaste marriage.

Several users have shared a photograph of a deceased girl in a suitcase on social media with a claim that the girl was a victim of 'love jihad', a term popularised by the right-wing referring to the alleged practice of converting Hindu girls to Islam in the guise of love.

However, we found the photograph is being shared with a false claim. It shows one Aayushi Chaudhary Yadav, 21, who was allegedly killed by her parents and dumped in a red suitcase near the Yamuna expressway in Mathura.

According to the police, Aayushi's parents did not approve of her marriage to a man from another caste and killed her after an argument on 17 November.

The viral claims comes in the backdrop of the horrific murder of Shraddha Walkar by her live-in partner Aaftab Poonawala in Delhi's Mehrauli.

CLAIM

The images were shared by some social media users with verified handles, including a senior correspondent at Hindi Khabar Anchal Yadav and two Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Uttar Pradesh.

(Note: We have refrained from adding any archive links due to the distressing nature of the visuals.)

Several other social media users also shared the viral claim on Facebook and Twitter.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We conducted a keyword search for "dead body on Yamuna expressway" and found several news reports on the same.

The Quint had also reported on the case and found that the girl in the viral image was Aayushi, a resident of Badarpur, who, according to the police, was allegedly shot dead by her parents.

On 18 November, the dead body of a young woman was found inside a red suitcase. She was identified as a resident of Delhi's Badarpur. She was shot dead by her parents on 17 November. They had kept the dead body in their home and transported it here at 3 am at night, and had dropped it on the expressway. CCTV footage from the highway shows both mother and father in the car.

Martand Prakash Singh, Additional SP, Mathura

The Quint's Piyush Rai had also shared the details of the incident, along with the video byte of Mathura Police.

Young woman found murdered and body abandoned in a trolley bag in UP's Mathura. Police has arrested parents of the deceased woman Ayushi Yadav, resident of Delhi. She was killed over marrying against the wishes of her family. Later her body was abandoned near highway in Mathura. pic.twitter.com/NWBI1P9wWl

— Piyush Rai (@Benarasiyaa) November 21, 2022

The Quint's WebQoof team then contacted the Martand Prakash Singh, additional superintendent of police, Mathura on 23 November. Singh dismissed the communal angle to the incident.

"The incident is not communal. The girl got married to a guy called Chatrapal Singh Gujjar, who is from a different caste. The girl's parents found out about the wedding and had an argument, which lead to her murder," Singh said.

We had earlier also reported that the girl's parents had confessed to the crime, the police has recovered the licensed pistol used to kill Aayushi, and the car used to transport her body.

Evidently, a case of honour killing of a 21-year-old girl in Delhi's Badarpur area was given a communal colour by social media users.

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