An eight-year-old picture of Bollywood actor Aamir Khan with two men is viral with false claims that he was photographed with two Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists.
BOOM found the picture to be of 2012 when Aamir Khan made a pilgrimage to Medina, Saudi Arabia with his mother for Hajj. The two men in the photo are well known Pakistani public personalities.
The photo is being shared with the text on the image that claims the following.
"Dear cinegoers, here is your Aamir Khan...
Do you know the people with him?
Junaid Samshed and Moulana Tariq (Laskhar-e-Toiba terrorists ). It's a view of Mecca during his religious trip. Reality of Satyameva Jayate and Atithi devo Bhava" anchor.
He is talking "intolerance", who tolerated these people's activities.
Simple intolerance towards a hard-working PM in a pre-planned way.....anti-national agenda by a famous cine hero...AWAKE..."
The text on the image is directed towards Aamir Khan comments on intolerance. At the Ramnath Goenka Awards function in 2015, Khan had commented on the 'growing intolerance' in the country and remarked that his wife Kiran Rao had even suggested leaving the country.
BOOM has fact-checked another photo from Aamir Khan's trip to Hajj in 2018 with a similar claim.
The photo has been revived after the actor drew criticism in India for meeting Emine Erdogan, the wife of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on August 15, 2020. The actor was in Turkey during the location research for his upcoming movie 'Laal Singh Chaddha'.
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The image is viral on twitter with the caption, "Aamir Khan never tweeted on #SushantSinghRajput's death not even on Independence Day. And h e's a pic of him where he is meeting with Terrorist Tarik Jameel and Junaid Shamshed. SHAME ON YOU AAMIR KHAN #तुर्की_भाग_आमिर_खान."
An archive of the tweet is available here.
Archived versions of similar tweets can be seen here and here.
BOOM also received the image multiple times on its helpline for verification.
FACT CHECK
A reverse image on the image gave us various articles of the same photo dating back to 2012.
Junaid Jamshed was a famous Pakistani recording artist, television personality, who had the same photo on his Twitter timeline dating back to March 14, 2013. The fake message incorrectly identifies him as Junaid 'Samshed'. The singer-turned-religious scholar died in a plane crash in 2016.
Another article by The Express Tribune, a Pakistani Newspaper dating back to December 14, 2016, had used the same photo on the occasion of Junaid Jamshed's demise in 2016 mentions a line about the photo being taken when Aamir Khan met Jamshed when he went to Hajj with his mother.
A report by India Today, dated October 21, 2012, reported that Aamir Khan went on his first Hajj trip with his mother and nine other people.
Maulana Tariq Jamil is a religious scholar and public speaker based in Pakistan, who has more than 4 million YouTube subscribers. In a video on YouTube channel The Ink of scholars, he describes how the 2012 meeting with Aamir Khan took place in Medina, Saudi Arabia during Aamir Khan's Hajj pilgrimage. He says the Pakistani cricketer, Shahid Afridi, who was Khan's friend, helped arranged the meeting. They met twice, and their second meeting involved Jamshed too.
Another article by a website The News Tribe, dated November 27 2012, confirms this the picture was taken when Aamir Khan met Maulana Tariq Jamil and Junaid Jamshed during his Hajj trip in Medina.
Other news reports that talk about the same meeting can be found here and here.
BOOM had previously debunked posts of the same meeting last year which were viral with a communal claim in 2018. This photo was revived many times, dating back to 2015 with a similar claim of Aamir Khan posing with terrorists.
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