Altered Photo Misidentifies Bondi Beach Shooter as Indian ‘Santosh Narain'

The image is altered. The original one shows Naveed Akram's name on the licence.

An edited image is being shared to falsely claim that it shows the driver licence of one Santosh Narain who was identified as one of the accused in the Bondi Beach terror attack.

(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Altered by The Quint)

A photograph of a driver licence issued in Australia's New South Wales area, bearing the name 'Santosh Narain' is being widely shared on social media in the wake of the terror attack at Australia's Bondi Beach on 14 December.

The claim: The photo of one Santosh Narain's licence is being shared to claim that he was identified as one of the gunmen who killed 15 people and left over 40 injured in the deadliest terror attack in Australia since 1996.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(Archives of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here, here, and here.)

But...?: The claim is false as the image is altered.

• The original version of the photo correctly shows it as one of the attackers' driver's licences, bearing the name Naveed Akram.

How do we know?: The Quint reported on the attackers' identities, naming them as Sajid Akram (50) and Naveed Akram (24).

The gunmen are Sajid and Naveed Akram.

(Source: The Quint)

• A simple keyword search for 'Bondi attackers' led us to more news reports about the gunmen, which can be read here, here, and here.

• All of them identified the attackers as a father-son duo Sajid and Naveed Akram.

The BBC identified the gunmen as Sajid and Naveed Akram.

(Source: BBC/Altered by The Quint)

All reports identified the gunmen as Akrams.

(Source: The Sydney Morning Herald/Screenshot)

• None of the reports related to the Bondi shooting mentioned any individual named Santosh Narain.

• Since these reports established that the shooters were identified as Sajid and Naveed Akram, it is clear that the image is not authentic.

• Running a reverse image search on the photo led us to an India Today report which carried an image of the actual driver's license, showing Akram's name.

• In this photo, Akram was seen wearing a shirt resembling Pakistan's cricket jersey.

This image showed Akram's name.

(Source: India Today/Screenshot)

Conclusion: An altered image is being shared to falsely claim that one of the Bondi Beach gunmen was identified as Santosh Narain, an Indian national.

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