ISLAMABAD – Facebook posts shared hundreds of times claim that the leaderof India’s opposition Congress party Rahul Gandhi met a Pakistaniintelligence agent during a trip to Dubai. The claim is false, the man theposts identify as Pasha in a photograph of a breakfast meeting is aUAE-based Indian businessman.
One misleading postlink,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 breakfastfood with several other men and one woman.
The post claims that one of the men at the table is a Pakistaniintelligence agent called Shuja Pasha.
Ahmed Shuja Pasha is a former headlinkofPakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency who led theorganisation from October 2008 to March 2012.
The post’s caption, translated into English, reads: “Candidate for India’sprime minister post Rahul Gandhi was the chief guest in Pakistan’s embassyin Dubai.
“Third man sitting from the right is Pakistan’s intelligence ISI agentShuja 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 aPakistani intelligence agent
Other similar posts were shared on Facebook, for example herelink and herelink,and on Twitter, for example here link.
However, the man in the photograph sitting next to Rahul Gandhi is notPasha.
This composite image created by AFP shows the man in the photograph fromthe misleading post on the left, compared with an AFP picture of Pashataken in 2008 on the right:
The man third from the right in the image posted on Facebook is in fact thechairman of the conglomerate LuLu Group International called Yusuff AliM.A. Here link is his official website.
Yusuff Ali attended the breakfast meeting, which was held at the residenceof Sunny Varkey, an Indian businessman, Pradeep Kumar, personal secretaryto Yusuff Ali, told AFP.
SOURCE:link