Fake Photo: Aamir Khan with Terrorists
The Claim
A photo depicts Bollywood actor Aamir Khan with Laskhar-e-Taiba terrorists.
News posted on
Emerging story
In August 2020, social media users began sharing the photo with an accompanying claim that it depicts Khan with two terrorists. Many of the posts included Islamophobic language.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation found that the photo caption is false. As we recently reported, Khan has been under fire for a fake interview in which he ostensibly said that his children would be raised Islam. The captions accompanying the photo reference actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who died on June 14, 2020. Actor Kangana Ranaut, who posted about the fake interview, also questioned Khan’s silence about Rajput’s death. This likely contributed to the viral posts.
We conducted a reverse image search and found that the photo was first published in 2012. While the picture does depict Tariq Jamil and Junaid Jamshed (incorrectly identified as “Samshed” in the viral posts) with Khan, they are not terrorists but rather Pakistani celebrities. Jamil is an Islamic scholar and public speaker, while Jamshed was an artist and TV personality who died in a 2016 plane crash. They were introduced to Khan by Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi.
