By Hazel Gandhi
A post purportedly made from Assam's Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's X account is viral online with the false claim that he criticised Sania Mirza following her separation from Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik by saying that her "Pakistani child" should not be granted an Indian visa.
BOOM found that the claims are false, the post was made by a verified X account impersonating Sarma.
Shoaib Malik recently married Pakistani actress Sana Javed amid rumours about his separation from wife Sania Mirza. Following his wedding announcement and pictures, the former Indian tennis player Sania Mirza's family released a statement clarifying that she and Malik had already been "divorced for a few months."
The purported post from Sarma's X account carried a photo of Mirza and her son Izhaan Mirza Malik with the caption, "Sania Mirza and her Pakistani child should not get an Indian citizenship at any cost. India will not bear the consequences of someone's foolishness. Retweet if you agree."
(Original text in Hindi: "सानिया मिर्ज़ा और उसके “पाकिस्तानी बच्चे” को किसी कीमत पर हिन्दुस्तान की नागरिकता नहीं देंगे ll "किसी के बेवकूफियों के नतीजे हिंदुस्तान नहीं झेलेगा" सहमत है तो रिट्वीट करें~")
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Hindi news outlets Jansatta and Navbharat also carried this post in their stories and attributed it to Himanta Biswa Sarma.
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FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the post was made by a fake account of Sarma, the Assam CM had made no such post criticising Sania Mirza.
We scanned the X profile that shared the post and found that it did not belong to Himanta Biswa Sarma. The account's name was Himanta Bishwa Sharma Satire-- the CM's name was spelt incorrectly. The bio, too, read "satire"
We then looked for Himanta Biswa Sarma's official X account and did not find any post similar to the viral post. Below is a comparison between the fake and original profile of Sarma:
We then looked for any news reports about Sarma's statement regarding Sania or her son, but did not find any results. Sarma, however, is known for making controversial statements. His recent threats to arrest Rahul Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra received backlash from former Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot.
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