Did Rahul Gandhi meet top Pakistani Intelligence Officer in Dubai?
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ISLAMABAD - Facebook posts shared hundreds of times claim that the leader of India’s opposition Congress party Rahul Gandhi met a Pakistani intelligence agent during a trip to Dubai. The claim is false, the man the posts identify as Pasha in a photograph of a breakfast meeting is a UAE-based Indian businessman.
One misleading post link, which has been shared 176 times since it was posted January 13, 2019, contains a picture of Rahul Gandhi sitting around a table full of breakfast food with several other men and one woman.
The post claims that one of the men at the table is a Pakistani intelligence agent called Shuja Pasha.
Ahmed Shuja Pasha is a former head link of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency who led the organisation from October 2008 to March 2012.
The post's caption, translated into English, reads: “Candidate for India's prime minister post Rahul Gandhi was the chief guest in Pakistan's embassy in Dubai.
"Third man sitting from the right is Pakistan’s intelligence ISI agent Shuja Pasha, who is also also coordinator of China- Pakistan armed forces. Rahul Gandhi has to answer, the truth will be revealed.” A screenshot of the misleading Facebook post claiming Rahul Gandhi met a Pakistani intelligence agent
Other similar posts were shared on Facebook, for example here link and here link, and on Twitter, for example here link.
However, the man in the photograph sitting next to Rahul Gandhi is not Pasha.
This composite image created by AFP shows the man in the photograph from the misleading post on the left, compared with an AFP picture of Pasha taken in 2008 on the right:
The man third from the right in the image posted on Facebook is in fact the chairman of the conglomerate LuLu Group International called Yusuff Ali M.A. Here link is his official website.
Yusuff Ali attended the breakfast meeting, which was held at the residence of Sunny Varkey, an Indian businessman, Pradeep Kumar, personal secretary to Yusuff Ali, told AFP.
SOURCE: link
