A tweet of senior officer of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) back fired on Friday after she shared an old image of Pakistani cricketers offering prayers and accused the players of forcing non-Muslim members of the team to join them.

The image, apparently from the time when former captain Inzamam-ul-Haq was leading the team, was shared with a caption which incorrectly identified a man as former spin bowler Danish Kaneria, and referred to former batsman Mohammad Yousuf as Yousuf Youhana.

The photo was shared in relation to a recent statement made by former speedster Shoaib Akhtar regarding the ill-treatment meted out to Kaneria by some members of the Pakistan cricket team allegedly because of his Hindu faith.

However, it seemed that Gandhi, in her zeal to share the news, apparently did not know what Kaneria looked like. The BJP member also appeared to be uniformed about the religious and spiritual journey of Yousuf, who has previously said that he accepted Islam long before he made it public.

Social media users were aghast at this blatant display of disinformation by a high-ranking member of the ruling party in India. Umer Farooq Kalson, a Pakistani journalist, even went as far as to school Gandhi about sharing fake news on social media.

The ruling BJP has been accused of following hard-line policies aimed at marginalizing the Muslim-minority in the country by Prime Minister Imran Khan on multiple occasions. PM Imran has also warned of an impending genocide of Muslims in the Hindu-majority India. 



from The News International - Pakistan https://ift.tt/2MyPAGG