The reality television show Bigg Boss 13 has recently released its brand new season with the same host taking over in the form of Salman Khan. As the latest season aired, there has been a lot of discussion going over the internet concerning the same. In the trail, there has been a recent release, featuring a black and white still image from the show which has been doing rounds on the internet. The image is going viral with a claim held against is that the reality show is encouraging “Love Jihad”.
The black and white still image features an intimate couple sharing a bed. As per the claim, the show has invited a Kashmiri Muslim man who was deliberately partnered to a Brahmin woman ‘to encourage Love Jihad’.
However, the popular media house India Today came up as a rescue in support. India Today’s Anti-Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found and declared the post to be misleading and fake. The AFWA have found that the black and white still image that went viral doesn’t belong to Bigg Boss season 13 but, the show’s season 9 which was aired in 2015.
In fact, the man and the woman, covered in the still image, are actors Suyyash Rai and Kishwar Merchant respectively, who were both the contestants of Bigg Boss season 9.
It should be known that, Atul Kushwaha, a verified Twitter handle has shared this misleading post on Friday. The tweet had been retweeted over 1,500 times and liked by over 2,500 users along with several Facebook posts, as well.
Reverse-searching the still image, the media house found the viral image was part of multiple YouTube videos that were uploaded in October, 2015. As per a YouTube channel TellyMasala, the video was titled as – Bigg Boss 9: Suyyash & Kishwar Intimate On-Camera. It featured, Suyyash Rai and Kishwar Merchant kissing each other in the middle of the night at the Bigg Boss house in the show’s season 9 (2015).
Watch the video here:
On further investigation, it was clear that Suyyash and Kishwar got married on December 16, 2016 after being in a relationship for a long time.
However, it is true that Kashmiri Muslim man, Asim Riaz is the contestant in the current season of Bigg Boss and he even shared a task with a Hindu girl, Mahira Sharma but, featuring such a post was definitely misleading. However, it should also be known that they both picked each other for the task of bathroom cleaning as both hailed from the same place- Kashmir.
