Fact Check: Woman’s Murder In MP Given False Communal Narrative

CLAIM Video shows Gulnaz Bano’s body in the fridge. She converted to Hinduism to marry Sanjay, who killed her.  FACT CHECK Dewas Superintendent of Police Puneet Gehlot told BOOM that the victim was from a Hindu family of the Prajapati caste, and that there is no communal angle to the incident.

A distressing video of a woman’s decomposed dead body being removed from a fridge is viral with a false communal claim that she is a Muslim woman, who, despite converting her religion, was killed by her husband, a Hindu man.

BOOM found that the video is from Madhya Pradesh (MP) where a woman was murdered by her live-in partner. MP police also rubbished the viral claim and confirmed that both the victim and accused belong to the Hindu community.

An X user shared the video with the caption claiming the accused is a Hindu Sanjay and the victim a Gulnaz Bano. The text claims, “Sanjay, Gulnaz Bano and the Fridge. Gulnaz converted to Hinduism for marrying Sanjay, threatening her parents with police case if they pursue her and moved in with Sanjay. Gulnaz’s rotting body was later found in a fridge with Sanjay nowhere to be found.”

BOOM has chosen not to include the video because of its distressing nature.

Click here to view the post and here for an archive.

The post had garnered over 50,000 views at the time of filing this report.

Fact Check

We first ran a keyword search on X and found a post by the wire agency IANS from January 10, 2025, where they had posted the same visuals as in the viral video.

IANS in its post reported that the police were investigating a case where a woman’s dead body was found stuffed in a fridge in Vrindavan Dham Colony house in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh.

Dewas, Madhya Pradesh: A woman's dead body was found in a house in Vrindavan Dham Colony. The body was found inside a fridge in a locked room. Police are investigating the matter pic.twitter.com/JO2z4NKN9D

— IANS (@ians_india) January 10, 2025

Click here to view the post and here for an archive.

We also found a news article by The Hindu from January 11, 2025, where the deceased was identified as Pratibha Prajapati, in her 30s, who had lived in the house until March 2024 with her live-in partner, Sanjay Patidar, 44.

The Hindu quoted Puneet Gehlot, Superintendent of Police, Dewas confirming the name of the victim. The report further said that Patidar was married but continued a live-in relationship with the victim Pratibha and that his friend Vinod Dave was a co-accused in the murder.

The Times of India further reported that the victim’s dead body was claimed by a Durgashankar Prajapat, a member of her community, after her family refused to accept it.

We then reached out to Gehlot who rubbished the communal claim, confirming that the victim and the accused belonged to the Hindu community.

Gehlot told BOOM, “The claim is completely fake. She belonged to a Hindu family, and we know the history of her parents and family. They are local residents of Ujjain. There is no communal angle to the incident.”

Disclaimer: This story was originally published by Boom, as part of the Shakti Collective. Except for the headline and excerpt, this story has not been edited by ABP LIVE staff.