A letter, purportedly sent to the Indian High Commission in Australia's Canberra by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), undersigned by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, is being shared on social media.
What does it say?: The letter instructs the High Commission to "extend full and unconditional cooperation to the Government of Australia and its designated investigative agencies," in light of the Bondi Beach terror attack on 14 December.
The claim: It is being shared to claim that after one of the two gunmen, Sajid Akram, was found to be of Indian origin, India extended its full cooperation for the investigation.
How do we know?: We carried out keyword searches to check if there were any reports or releases about the MEA's directive.
However, we did not find the document in question, or its contents, shared by any official or credible source.
Neither the MEA's website, nor the Indian High Commission in Canberra's website carried any document of this nature.
Since we did not find any evidence of the letter being authentic, we continued to look for documents bearing the foreign secretary's signature on the MEA's website.
This led us to a 2018 file, which was a bilateral agreement between India and Myanmar, when Foreign Secretary Misri was serving as the Ambassador of India to Myanmar.
Misri's signature in this document was vastly different than the one seen in the viral claim, which simply carried the word 'Vikram' (विक्रम) in the Devnagari script.
MEA clarifies: Taking to their X handle, the MEA called out the letter, dubbing it "fake."
Conclusion: A fake letter is being shared to falsely claim that the Ministry of External Affairs directed the Indian High Commission in Canberra to fully cooperate with Australian agencies for the probe into one of the Bondi gunmen.
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