A Brazilian hairdresser Larissa Nery, who has been making headlines in India this week after her photograph was splashed over the news in an allegation about alleged election fraud, has told the BBC she initially thought it was all a mistake. Or a prank.
But then her social media blew up and people started tagging her on Instagram.
"At first it was a few random messages. I thought they were mistaking me for someone else," she told the BBC. "Then they sent me the video where my face appeared on a big screen. I thought it was AI or some joke. But then lots of people started messaging at the same time and I realised it was real."
Nery, who lives in Belo Horizonte, capital city of southeastern Brazil's Minas Gerais state, and has never been to India, says she searched on Google to understand what was going on.
What had happened was the fallout of a press conference by Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday where he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party BJP and the Election Commission (EC) of committing voter fraud in last year's election in Haryana state. The BJP has denied the allegations.
