No, this is not Congress' Supriya Shrinate with Dawood Ibrahim

By: Rohith Gutta
June 21 2023

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No, this is not Congress' Supriya Shrinate with Dawood Ibrahim

Fact-Check

The Verdict False

The woman in the photo is journalist Sheela Bhatt. The photo was taken when she interviewed fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim in Dubai in 1987.

Claim ID bcc1fb8f

Context

A photo of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim with a woman sitting across the table from him has been shared on Twitter with the claim that the woman in the photo is Supriya Shrinate, national spokesperson of the Indian National Congress. In a tweet, originally in Hindi, posted on June 19, Twitter user Manoj Srivastava (@ManojSr60583090) claimed that the photo was taken in the year 1987. He alleged that Shrinate worked as “an agent of Dawood Ibrahim at that time,” and now she is working for the “Radical Islamic Organization called Congress Party.” The photo was also shared with a similar claim by the verified Twitter account ‘Yogi Adithyanth Fan (Digital Warrior) Godse’s Disciple.’ The photo was shared by several other users making similar claims, often using derogatory language for Shrinate.

In Fact

A reverse image search of the photo led us to the Twitter profile of senior journalist Sheela Bhatt. In a tweet on June 14, 2023, she had posted the same photo with the caption: “Drop a photo of you doing your job…Interviewing Dawood Ibrahim in Pearl Building, Dubai, 1987.” She had even tagged several other prominent journalists in her tweet. 

In a follow-up tweet, Bhatt identified herself as the woman in the photograph and shared more details about the interview. She posted two photos in the tweet: one is a cover photo of Gujarati magazine Abhiyaan dated 4 July 1988; the other photo is the cover of The Illustrated Weekly of India magazine, dated December 25-31, 1988. Both magazines had Dawood Ibrahim on their covers. Sharing the photos, Bhatt wrote: “Flooded with queries if this is fake pic or real. Just to put record straight posting two cover pages 1) Abhiyaan, the weekly founded by me and my late husband Kanti Bhatt and 2) The Illustrated Weekly. Both carried my interview of Dawood Ibrahim in 1987. Weekly’s cover story was written by distinguished journalist Amrtia Shah. My interview ran along with her cover story. All Dawood pics were taken by me (sic)”.

Before foraying into politics, Supriya Shrinate was a journalist for over 17 years. According to her Linkedin profile, she only started working as a journalist in 2001, 14 years after the viral photograph was taken. Her Linkedin profile also mentioned that she started her senior secondary education at Loreta Convent in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, in 1988. This means that Shrinate was very young and most likely in school when this viral photograph was taken. 

The Verdict

The woman in the picture across the table from fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim is journalist Sheela Bhatt, not Supriya Shrinate. Therefore, we mark this claim false.

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