Fact Check: Former Miss India Universe’s image is going viral with false claim

New Delhi (Vishvas Team). A post is going viral on social media having a picture of a girl pulling a rickshaw with an old man sitting on the passenger seat. The social media users are claiming that the man sitting on the rickshaw is the father of this girl and he struggled a lot to make her a police officer.

In our investigation, we found the claim to be fake. The girl in the viral image is former Miss India Universe Simran Kaur Mundi. She is an actor and model. The concerned image was shot when she was promoting a campaign for entertainment company Star Mason in 2016.

Claim

In the viral post, a girl can be seen pulling a rickshaw. Post’s description says: A father made his daughter ASI by pulling the rickshaw. Salute to the Father.

Archived version of the viral post can be seen here.

Investigation

In the viral image, the person who is sitting on the rickshaw is holding a placard with ‘Follow Star Mason’ written on it.

To investigate this post, we searched this image on internet with the help of Google reverse image tool. Reverse image results took us to Star Mason Entertainment’s Instagram account, where this image was shared in 2016. In this post, Simran Kaur Mundi’s name was written below the image. Simran Kaur Mundi is a former Miss India Universe 2008.

Now we headed to Simran Kaur Mundi’s Instagram account where we found the viral image shared in 2016. Post’s description was: Aaja meri gaadi mein baith ja 😀 and #FollowStarMasons #starmasons #badshah #bangalore @starmasons

In our Google search, we found that Star Mason is an entertainment company that sponsors shows of several artists.

To get official confirmation regarding the viral post. We contacted Simran Mundi through Email. In revert, Simran Mundi’s team told vishvas: “The image mentioned here in this post is of Simran Kaur Mundi and a rickshaw driver whose rickshaw Simran is riding. Viral post is misleading and factually incorrect.”

Many people are sharing this post on social media. One of these is a Facebook page named “Justice For Punjab”. The page has a following of 53,015.