No, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not meet Hafiz Saeed, the head of a UN and US-listed terrorist organisation

The manipulated photo, was quickly shared hundreds of times after being posted to Facebook here on February 17, 2019.

It was published three days after a suicide bomb attack in Indian-administered Kashmir claimed the lives of at least 41 Indian soldiers. Here is an AFP report from February 16 on that incident.

Below is a screenshot of the false post.

Image

Snapshot of the misleading post

The caption in the image in Hindi reads says: “This is the photo of Hafiz Saeed and Modi meeting in Pakistan. See for yourself who is a traitor”.

Saeed is the head of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which the UN lists here as a terrorist organisation.

The US government is also offering a reward of $10 million for information that brings Saeed to justice. Here is the US government’s bounty offer for Saeed, which describes him as a Pakistani national who is the suspected  mastermind of terrorists attacks in Mumbai in 2008 that claimed 166 lives.

A reverse image search found that the man shaking hands with Modi is Sharif, not Saeed. 

Below is a screenshot of the original photo of the genuine handshake published by the Reuters news agency here, with the caption saying the Modi-Sharif meeting took place on December 25, 2015. It said the photo was a handout from the Indian government's press department. 

Image

Snapshot of the Reuters photo showing Modi meeting Sharif

The original photo clearly shows the exact same scene as the manipulated photo, except the doctored one is zoomed in and has Saeed's face in it.

Below are more pictures from the Modi-Sharif meeting in December 2015 that were shared by the Indian government's press information bureau from its official Twitter account.

PM @narendramodi warmly received by PM Nawaz Sharif at Lahore, Pakistan pic.twitter.com/t4DreFv35A

— PIB India (@PIB_India) December 25, 2015