Just recently, a story on how an NLU Jodhpur law student from Rajasthan fell to her death on last Sunday while holidaying in Gokarna has been doing rounds. Various news reports claimed that 21-year-old Pranita Mehta slipped and fell to her death while trying to take the “perfect selfie” from the top of a lighthouse. But the story is apparently false.

NLU Jodhpur students and alumni on Thursday hit back at the false narrative built around Pranita’s death by national media. They are claiming that she didn’t even go to the lighthouse on that particular day. “It was absolutely false, she was sitting on the beach when the tide came and she was trying to fight for her life for 45 minutes,” an NLU Jodhpur alumnus said.

In an attempt to rub away the false reports, one of Pranita’s friends took to Reddit and described the actual events that lead to her untimely death. In a post titled “My friend passed away and TOI made a mockery of her”, her friend wrote that Pranita was swept away by unexpected high tide while sitting on rocks (which were about 10-15 feet above the sea) at Kumta Beach along with two other friends. The post adds that two of them were brought back to the shore by another wave, but Pranitha, whose glasses had come off, continued to struggle as she held on to a rock for support 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.

Here’s the FIR copy:

Pranita’s friend concluded the post saying, “I would request you to please check your facts before publishing such news articles. This is also a reminder to all of you that every time you read a story where the victim died in this way might actually just be a cooked up tale.”