Photos of female officers falsely shared as 'Pakistani woman who fled to India'
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 7, 2023 at 14:53
- Updated on August 11, 2023 at 03:49
- 6 min read
- By Anuradha PRASAD, AFP India
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Three pictures of a woman in uniform were published on Facebook here on July 15, 2023.
The post's Hindi-language caption claims they show Seema Haider, whose "real name" is Samia Rehman and that she works for the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's foreign intelligence agency.
"Her aim was to trap the Indian youth in her love and settle in India. Later, she would join the Indian army with the help of fraudsters and would start sending secret information to Pakistan," the caption also says.
Another three pictures were shared here on Facebook alongside a similar claim on July 13, 2023. Two of the pictures show a woman in uniform while the third photo shows a woman wearing a saree.
Similar posts also circulated here and here on Facebook, as well as here and here on Twitter, recently rebranded X, where they have been reshared more than 340 times.
The second set of the pictures were shared by Facebook users in Pakistan here and here, who claim that those are images of Haider and that she is an Indian spy named "Priyanka".
The claims emerged following reports that Seema Haider -- a married 27-year-old Muslim mother of four from Pakistan -- travelled to India to meet a 22-year-old man called Sachin Meena. The couple came to know each other while playing online shooting game PUBG during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
She left her husband in Pakistan and smuggled herself and her four children into India via Nepal in May 2023.
Haider and her lover were arrested and released on bail. She also said she had "since married Sachin and taken his name", as well as converted to Hinduism.
Haider also told the news website India Today that she was interviewed by Indian authorities over spying allegations, and she was asked "extremely tough questions" (archived link).
However, the claim is false.
Pakistani soldier turned actress
Reverse image searches found three of the photos appeared in an article on the website of a UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo published on March 11, 2020 (archived link).
It was an International Women's Day interview with Samia Rehman, a Pakistani army major who served in the African country as part of the UN mission.
Below are screenshot comparisons of the images in the misleading Facebook posts (left) and the genuine pictures from the UN peacekeeping website (right):
Another picture of a woman in uniform in the first misleading post was taken from a Pakistani TV series originally released in 2021, called "Sinf-e-Aahan", where Rehman had an acting role.
The picture was published in January 2022 by Pakistani entertainment news site ShowBiz Pakistan in a report about the television series (archived link).
"This article is going to serve you with all the inspirational journeys of Major Samia Rehman," the English-language article reads. "She is from Pakistan armed forces and recently is performing the role of Major Samia in Sinf-e-Aahan," it said.
The report also includes Rehman's photos from the UN peacekeeping website.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the image in one of the misleading posts (left) and the genuine picture from ShowBiz Pakistan (right):
The same "Sinf-e-Aahan" picture was also published in other media reports about Rehman's role in the series, such as here and here (archived links here and here).
Rehman's appearance in the drama series can be seen in a clip uploaded on the official YouTube channel of the show's production company ARY Digital (archived link).
Indian policewoman
A combination of reverse image and keyword searches found the black-and-white photo was published in an article from Madras Musings, a biweekly newspaper based in Chennai, the capital of India's Tamil Nadu state. (archived links here and here).
The January 2023 article, titled "Golden Jubilee of Women in Tamil Nadu Police", identfied the woman as Usharani Narendra, the first female sub-inspector in Tamil Nadu, recruited in 1973.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the picture in one of the misleading posts (left) and the genuine picture from Madras Musings (right):
A similar photo of Narendra appeared in a Times of India report on the inaguration of the Tamil Nadu police museum, published on September 29, 2021 (archived link).
Seema Haider in saree
Only one picture -- which shows a saree-clad woman -- is of Haider herself.
It was published in a report about Haider by Indian TV channel News18 on July 12, 2023 (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of Haider's photo in one of the misleading posts (left) and in the News18 report (right):
She can be seen in the same attire in this interview with India TV (archived link).
August 11, 2023 This article was updated to correct the date of the first main misleading post.
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