Claim
A distressing image of a quadruple suicide in Rajasthan's Jodhpur has resurfaced with a lockdown spin on Facebook. The image shows bodies of a family of four, including two minor children, hanging from an iron rod in their home. It has resurfaced with claims that the family committed suicide due to lack of relief aid provided by the government during the COVID-19 lockdown. The photograph has been captioned as, "A painful event exposing the government's relief work. This news will be confirmed soon by the media." (Original text in Hindi: सरकार की राहत की पोल खोलती हुई एक हृदयविदारक घटना। इस खबर की पुष्टि जल्द ही समाचारों से की जाएगी।) The post has been shared more than 21,000 times at the time of writing this article.
Fact
BOOM found that the image is from Jodhpur, where a family of four were driven to commit suicide due to extreme poverty, in 2017. We ran a reverse search on the photograph and found the original image, which was first uploaded in an Egyptian research journal on forensics. We reached out to one of the authors of the case report, Dr Navneet Ateriya, who confirmed that the photograph was taken at the crime scene, in Jodhpur's Bhakri village in the presence of a police team. The family had been driven to commit suicide on account of extreme poverty.