Photos of Malayalam actor allegedly physically abused by partner shared with false communal angle

By: Chandan Borgohain
April 18 2023

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Trigger Warning: Mentions of physical abuse.

Context

In India, over the last few years, there has been a significant increase in the use of social media platforms to spread inflammatory narratives that seek to incite hatred and hostility toward religious minority communities. One such narrative often propagated by Hindu right-wing voices is the so-called anti-women “love jihad” rhetoric that targets Muslim men. While these narratives have been debunked repeatedly, unsubstantiated claims about Hindu girls abused at the hands of their Muslim partners continue to surface on the internet. 

Recently, a false claim of a Hindu girl being severely abused by her Muslim boyfriend has been circulating on social media. A Facebook post, shared by many users, shows photographs of a woman with a badly bruised face and a swollen eye. The text, written in Assamese, projects the woman as a communist and a secular Hindu and claims that she engaged in a relationship with a Muslim man called Abdul and was severely physically abused by him. The photos were shared on Twitter as well with similar claims. 

In Fact

We conducted a reverse image search on the images and this led us to an article by The Indian Express. According to the article, published on March 7, the woman seen in the photos is Malayalam actor Anicka Vikhraman. The report said that the actor had brought allegations of mental and physical abuse against her former boyfriend in a Facebook post. “Malayalam actor Anicka Vikhraman has opened up about her horrific abusive relationship with her former boyfriend. The actor took to Facebook and shared pictures of herself, badly bruised, injured, and with a black eye,” the report said. However, the post embedded in the article is no longer available. The report added that her ex-boyfriend Anoop Pillai had allegedly abused her for the past few years. 

According to Hindustan Times, the actor claimed that she had complained to the police in Bangalore when Anoop harassed her for the second time but he "paid" off the police officers who then allegedly asked her to drop the matter. The report further stated that the actor in her post claimed that after she lodged the police complaint, her ex-boyfriend had been “absconding” and left for New York. 

According to The Indian Express, Anicka had shared her ordeal online and “wrote how despite breaking up and overcoming her traumatic past, she is still receiving “threatening calls.”

The viral post sharing a communal narrative identifies the woman as Angikata Vijay, whereas we have found that her actual name is Anicka Vikhraman, and we found no evidence that she calls herself a secular or a communist, as claimed in the posts. The reports show that the posts are peddling Vikhraman's photos with a false claim and a communal angle.

The Verdict

The viral photos show Malayalam actor Anicka Vikhraman, who posted photos of herself, alleging physical abuse by her former boyfriend. The allegations are against a man named Anoop Pillai and not against someone named Abdul. It is clear that the allegations brought by the actor against her former partner clearly do not have any communal angle as claimed. Therefore, we mark this claim false.