If we ask you what is one of the most precious reminders of your wedding, many of us would say “The Wedding Album”.
It is definitely one thing that brings a smile on our face as it reminds us of our special day and the beautiful lifelong journey of togetherness.
But, unfortunately, the most precious reminder, a wedding photo – turned into a nightmare for this newly-wed Kerala couple.
When 29-year-old Anoop P Sebastian and 27-year-old Juby Joseph married on Feb 4, they hardly knew the next few days of their married life, which are generally the best days of any marriage, would turn into the ugliest.
The harassment soon began after their photo was published in the matrimonial section of a local newspaper.
It has been quite a trauma for the couple when several people who were in dire need of a hobby, started passing around Juby’s wedding photographs and creating hurtful, disgusting and distasteful rumours about the couple.
After looking at the photo, some regressive minds deduced from the photograph that the marriage is “problematic” because Juby “looks older” than Anoop. What’s more, they also calculated an imaginary dowry that Juby’s family must have doled out.
Along with the photo of the couple, the following content of the disgusted was shared across social media:
“Woman’s age 48… Man’s age 25… Woman’s assets worth Rs. 25 Crore… Dowry 101 sovereigns Rs. 50 lakhs… The rest will follow… A marriage that happened in our own Cherupuzha.”
Since the message has gone viral, there has been a flood of harassing messages from strangers on social media. Most of the messages targeted Juby – those people not only fat-shamed her but fat-shamed her with sexual overtones.
And, the innocent families of the couple were also not spared. The families, along with the couple, started getting abusive messages and phone calls when the WhatsApp messages went viral.
These messages were so disturbing that the couple had no choice but to file a police complaint.
As per the report in TOI, the police noted that the case was of body-shaming with the intention to harm a woman’s modesty.
Though five accused have been arrested for spreading this rumour, but the police couldn’t find any reason why these 5 men will spread such a sad and distasteful rumour about the innocent couple.
Sadly, it is hard to ignore how ugly our society has become as many people came forward to share hurtful messages that were aiming at the innocent bride.
These messages were made with a clear attempt to body-shame the bride through sexist comments about her age and assets.
Read: Inspiring Husband Shuts Down People Commenting On His Wife’s Weight
There were only a few people who came forward in the support of the couple and restored our hope in mankind:
Sick! Sick! Sick
When will such cheap crowd stop intervening into others business?????
Juby and Anup, you guys look perfect for each other. Just ignore the world. God bless you #bodyshaming #couples #newlyweds #Memes #WhatsApp https://t.co/L7nG680pxW— Shyamalatha Devi (@shyamalathadevi) February 9, 2019
Jobless idiots doing what they do best — disturbing another person’s peace of mind. https://t.co/HEaZdvEk3f
— Megha Kaveri (@meghakaveri) February 9, 2019
What saddening is how this newly-wed couple with no fault of their own went through such a horrific incident.
What makes it even sadder is that people who spread this fake story about this couple didn’t have any reason to put this newly-wed through this trauma.
It might look like a story that will never happen to you or to your family. What makes it scary is that it only takes a photo and an app to spread a piece of fake news about anyone and put the whole family through a heart-wrenching trauma.