Rahul Gandhi radiated two images in social media posts claiming they proved that the leader of the Indian opposition Congress party took a photo with YouTuber for a photo and was arrested for alleged surveillance of Pakistan. They surfaced after four days of fighting between nuclear-weapon enemies, but the original work showed that the visuals had been changed to insert into YouTuber’s face.
On May 21, 2025, a Hindi Facebook post shared Indian YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra, which can be seen with Gandhi in the image (archive link).
“Every traitor and anti-nation saw a strange coincidence with Rahul Gandhi!” it said. “Is Rahul Gandhi the mastermind behind the turmoil in the country?”
Screenshot of fake post, captured on May 23, 2025
The post surfaced after Indian authorities accused Malhotra and ten other generals of leaking military information to Pakistan (an archived link).
The nuclear-weapon enemy agreed to a ceasefire on May 10, ending a four-day fierce battle, claiming the lives of more than 70 people on both sides (a link to archive).
Two weeks after the Indian-managed Kashmir attack, the battle broke out, with India blaming Pakistan but denied by Islamabad.
The image is shared with similar claims from Facebook, X and elsewhere in threads, some of which users think it is real.
One commented: “I noticed one thing…whether it mentions treason, it also refers to Congress.”
Another wrote: “Congressional headquarters is a training center for traitors.”
But the reverse image search on Google shows that the image has changed.
State Representative Aditi Singh shared her first photo on Facebook on December 16, 2017, when she was a member of the Congress party before joining the Bharatiya Janata party in 2021 (archive link).
The caption of this photo reads: “Many congratulations and best wishes by Rahul Gandhi.
Comparison of screenshots of images in Singh’s Facebook page
Another search showed Gandhi posted the original of the second photo on his Facebook page on September 18, 2022, as part of his Bharat Jodo Yatra campaign (archived here and here).
It shows him posing for a photo, a person who is different from a person seeing in fake posts.
Comparison of screenshots of images from fake posts (L) and Gandhi’s Facebook page
AFP has debunked a series of false claims about the India-Pakistan conflict.
