After Rahul’s ‘Masood Azhar ji’ Remark, Parody Tweet Goes Viral
After Rahul addressed Masood Azhar with a “ji”, parody accounts have falsely attributed clarifications to Surjewala.
CLAIM
Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party attacked Rahul Gandhi for addressing Jaish-e-Mohammed's Masood Azhar as "Masood Azhar ji", a Twitter account by the name 'Tiimes How' quoted Congress Spokesperson Randeep Surjewala as saying:
"#RahulLovesTerrorists is not true. He didnt mean Masood Azhar Ji, that Ji is not Ji but G which stands for Gunehgaar, Gunda, Gangster. Just like they used G for Osama & Hafiz. Sonia Gandhi Ji has taught Rahul Gandhi Ji to not use bad words openly." (sic)
The post had over 1.8k likes and 600 re-tweets at the time of writing this article.
The tweet was also shared by several others, who lashed out Surjewala’s purported "clarification."
Meanwhile, another Twitter handle – ‘The Unpaid Times’ – also quoted Surjewala as saying, "Congress party has a deep respect for terrorists like Masood Azhar ji, Hafeez Saeed ji because every time we lose elections, they help us get back in power." (sic)
This tweet, too, had over 270 likes and 100 re-tweets at the time of writing this article.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The quote in the Tiimes How post is false. In fact, ‘Tiimes How’ is a parody and satire account, as stated in its bio.
The account has now been suspended.
Similarly, ‘The Unpaid Times’ is also a satirical news website, as mentioned in its Twitter bio.
WHAT DID SURJEWALA ACTUALLY SAY?
Soon after the BJP hit out at Gandhi for his remark, Surjewala took to Twitter on Monday, 11 March, to point out that the party president had used the term "Azhar ji" as a manner of “sarcasm.”
On Tuesday, 12 March, Surjewala cited a 2010 interview to claim that National Security Advisor Ajit Doval had blamed the BJP-led government for the release of JeM chief Masood Azhar during Kandahar hijacking and gave a "clean chit" to the terrorist.
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