Supriya Shrinate with Dawood Ibrahim- know the truth

The woman in the viral image is journalist Sheela Bhatt interviewing underworld don Dawood Ibrahim at Pearl Building, Dubai in 1987

An image of a woman sitting opposite Underworld gangster Dawood Ibrahim in an office has gone viral on social media. Users who share the image claims that it shows the former journalist and current Spokes person of the Congress Supriya Shrinate posing with gangster Dawood Ibrahim 

The caption of the viral post states, “The name of this woman seen with Dawood in this picture of 1987 is Supriya Shrinate. At this time, she is the national spokesperson of Congress. You can often see her speaking shamelessly in a TV debate. Now I understand why she abuses and quarrels with everyone and introduces herself to her nonsense language”

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The same post is widely shared on Facebook also.

Facebook post

Fact Check- 

We performed a reverse image search on the image which led us to a tweet shared by Sheela Bhatt, a journalist. Her tweet stated that this photograph was clicked in Pearl Building, Dubai in 1987 when she interviewed Dawood Ibrahim.  Sheela Bhatt tweeted the viral photo on 14 June, 2023. 

Sheela Bhatt also tweeted stating that the 1987 interview was carried in The Illustrated Weekly. In the tweet below she states, “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.”

Meanwhile we checked Supriya Shrinate’s social media accounts but could not discover any reference of this image. Next we contacted with AICC General Secretary KC Venugopal’s office for more information and confirmation regarding this claim of Congress spokesperson. Then Mr. Sharath from his personal assistant told us “such propaganda was noticed by us and it’s a baseless claim. Supriya Shrinate was born in 1977; she was only ten years old when this viral image of Dawood Ibrahim and Sheela Bhatt was clicked.

Supriya Shrinate

Conclusion- 

Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the viral image to be False.  

The woman in the viral picture interviewing Dawood Ibrahim is not Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate, but senior journalist Sheela Bhatt.