An apparent picture of the naked body of a woman lying on the seashore is viral on social media. Users have shared the picture claiming that the incident occurred in the Maldives where the woman, a tourist, was allegedly gang-raped and tortured to death. After that, her body was dumped on the beach.
This comes amid a diplomatic row between India and the Maldives that erupted after three Maldivian ministers had been removed for making derogatory comments about PM Narendra Modi following the latter’s visit to Lakshadweep.
An X (formerly Twitter) user, @AzzatAlsaalem, posted the image with the caption, “A girl who went on a trip to the Maldives was found dead naked near the seashore. She was gang-raped and tortured before being killed!” The post has received over 180,300 views, 4,300 likes and 1,800 retweets. (Archive)
Another user, @Leeonie_2 also shared the picture with the same claim, which received over 72,000 views, 855 likes and 563 retweets. (Archive)
Several other users also amplified the claim on X.
Fact Check
We performed a reverse image search of the viral picture on Google. This led us to a 2022 report published by New York Post which contained the same image. The report, titled, “‘Dead body’ on tourist hot spot beach turns out to be sex doll“, stated that in August 2022, beachgoers informed the Thailand police of a naked body of a woman that had washed up on the Bang Sean beach in the Chon Buri province of Thailand. However, police discovered that what appeared to be a corpse was actually a hyper-realistic sex doll.
Another 2022 report featuring the viral pictures was published by Times Now, titled. ” ‘Murdered women’ on beach causes mass panic, turns out to be a hyper-realistic sex doll worth Rs 45k“. This report states, “… the body was identified as a hyper-realistic Japanese ‘AV idol’ sex doll which is estimated to cost around THB 20,000”.
To sum up, social media users have shared a picture, falsely claiming that it depicts a female tourist’s dead body dumped on a beach in the Maldives. Our fact check revealed that the image was from a 2022 incident in Thailand when a hyper-realistic sex doll washed up on the shores of Bang Sean beach in Chon Buri province of Thailand.
Abira Das is an intern at Alt News.
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