No, The Philippines Didn’t Declare Indian Diplomat ‘Persona Non Grata’

The MEA has clarified that the letter, purportedly issued by The Philippines' DFA, is fake.

A fake document is being shared to falsely claim that an Indian diplomat was declared 'Persona Non Grata' by the Philippines after the Bondi Beach attack.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

An image showing a declaration allegedly issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) of The Philippines, is being widely shared on social media following the terror attack by two gunmen near Australia's Bondi Beach in Sydney on 14 December.

The claim: The image is being shared to claim that the DFA declared Nilesh Kumar Rai, the First Secretary (Consular & Community) of Indian Embassy in the Philippines, "PERSONA NON GRATA within the Philippines due to violation of Tenets and code of conduct (sic)."

• The letter adds that Rai was "instructed to leave the Philippines in next 48 hours," after being declared Persona Non Grata (unwelcome person) by the DFA.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: Instagram/Screenshot)

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

Why is it being shared?: One of the Bondi gunmen, Sajid Akram, was found to be an Indian national and had travelled to the Philippines for "military-style training" in November 2025.

• Some social media users are speculating whether the alleged demand for Rai's removal is linked to the Bondi shooter's training and nationality.

However, the claim is false, as the image is fake.

• There is no record of The Philippine government making any declaration of this nature.

How do we know?: We ran a keyword search with the term 'Nilesh Kumar Rai Persona Non Grata' on Google, but this did not yield any relevant results from credible sources.

• We then checked the DFA's website, especially going through updates, statements and advisories, and press releases, but did not find any such announcement there either.

• On their X (formerly Twitter) account, we came across official communication which resembled the image in the claim.

• We noticed that the font, stylisation of text, and the date line in the viral image did not match what we saw in the official note about cancelling a former Congressman's passport.

The real letter capitalises 'MANILA' and spells December in full.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

• In the viral claim, we observed that the Rai's first name was spelled differently in two spots, and the letter also carried a couple of punctuation errors.

• These indicate that the document was not authentic.

There is no comma between Rai's name and title in the first sentence.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

Further searches led us to an X post by India's Ministry of External Affairs' (MEA) fact-checking wing, which categorically labelled this letter as "fake."

The MEA advised people to remain alert against disinformation.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

Conclusion: A fake letter is being shared to falsely claim that the Philippine DFA declared First Secretary (Consular & Community) of Indian Embassy in the Philippines Nilesh Kumar Rai as 'Persona Non Grata.'

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