Many of the top news websites falsely reported that Pranita, who was a student of National Law University, Jodhpur, died in an attempt to take a perfect selfie on the top of a lighthouse. However, a recent Reddit post has opened the eyes of everyone to the truth behind her tragic death.
Quoted from the Reddit post available here:
Actual Events:
Pranita, who was a student of National Law University, Jodhpur, was visiting Gokarna with four of her friends. They were at Kumta beach, and were sitting on some rocks which were about 10-15 feet above sea, when due to unexpected high tide, 3 of the youngsters, including the deceased, were flown away by a giant wave. Two of them were brought back to the shore by another wave, but the deceased, whose glasses had come off, continued to struggle as she held on to a rock for support she bravely struggled and tried to swim for 45 mins. Unfortunately, she lost her grip, and was carried towards the deeper end of the sea by the waves. The friends promptly called the Police as well as the Management of the Hotel they were staying at, and proceeded to seek help from the local residents from a nearby village. However, they could not understand the youngsters’ plea for help, and by the time they did send some help, about forty minutes had already passed and the deceased was out of sight. She was brought back ashore on a boat by some of the local fishermen, and was pronounced dead by the authorities. Her body was taken for post-mortem and was handed over to her relatives afterwards.
She was an amazing person, extremely intelligent, she was the class topper and represented India and NLUJ at prestigious events such as Jessup, she was kind and warm hearted. Her batchmates, teachers, seniors and even our Alumni have been rallying on facebook and on twitter, spreading the story of what really happened and contacting government officials (Arun jately among others) to take some action against these newspapers but I doubt they will listen to a hundred students. Her family has been mourning the loss of their great daughter, the last thing they need is her being mocked and laughed at for dying while taking a selfie.
All we want is that her family is not harassed by untrue depictions of the event which belittle the huge amount of respect that she has earned through her hardwork.
I would request you to please check your facts before publishing such news articles.
This is also a reminder to all of you that everytime you read a story where the victim died in this way might actually just be a cooked up tale.
For Pranita.
Edit: Guys please, if something here offends you then please let me know, but please do not downvote this, we don’t want her to be remembered this way, we want to get the true story out.
EDIT: for those who wanted proof COPY OF FIR CORROBORATING THE STORY http://imgur.com/a/s9djo
After this was posted on Reddit many of the websites have taken down the post and many have put up the correct version and have apologised to the parents of the deceased.
We did it reddit!
- ScoopWhoophttp://www.scoopwhoop.com/Remember-The-Law-Student-Who-Died-While-Clicking-A-Selfie-In-Gokarna-The-Story-Is-Apparently-False
- Legally India:http://www.legallyindia.com/law-schools/nlu-jodhpurians-try-to-protect-memory-of-student-whose-drowning-misreported-by-media-as-sensational-daredevil-selfie-death
- Bar and Bench:http://barandbench.com/setting-record-straight-counter-misreportage-nlu-jodhpur-students-death/
- the story is now international- Irish mirror : http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/world-news/tragic-student-washed-cliffs-front-8099439
- Indian Express:http://indianexpress.com/article/trending/trending-in-india/nlu-jodhpur-law-student-selfie-death-drowning-2831110/#sthash.iXLC56nI.gbpl&st_refDomain=m.facebook.com&st_refQuery=/
- UK mirror:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/tragic-student-washed-cliffs-front-8099439
(UK and Irish mirror had published the incorrect version of events but promptly changed the article once the true version was pointed out by students through email)
- The Quint:http://www.thequint.com/india/2016/06/02/selfie-attempt-nlu-student-media-falsely-reports-cause-of-death
- As of 9:45 PM , The Article on ‘The Hindu’ has ben taken down
ScoopWhoop has retracted its previous story and apologised to her family and many other websites are doing the same. I will keep updating this post adding to the list of websites.
One of the redditor has suggested that proper warning signs must be installed at such places to avoid future tragic deaths of similar nature. One lesson we get from this incident is that ,not everything which media shows is true.