A document carrying the name of businesswoman Riniki Bhuyan Sharma, wife of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, is being shared as an evidence of her having an United Arab Emirates (UAE) passport.
The context?: The claim stems from a press conference hosted by Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera on 5 April, where he levelled allegations against Riniki Bhuyan Sharma claiming that she possessed multiple passports.
What are the facts?: The viral document is fake. It shows an Emirates identification card and does not show an UAE passport.
Further, we found an older post on Facebook that showed the Emirates ID belonged to a different individual.
What led us to the truth?: On running a reverse image search on the viral image, we found a post uploaded on X handle named 'Surnesh'.
It carried a screenshot of a post shared in a Facebook group that showed an individual's UAE resident identity card. The post was shared on 6 April.
Finding the original post: We looked for 'Pakistani in Ajman' group on Facebook and found that the original post had been deleted by the person who had originally posted it.
Next, we searched for archives and found one on Wayback Machine.
The post was originally shared on 28 March, which predated Khera's presser.
The caption, too, clarified that it was indeed an Emirates ID.
Comparing visuals: Team WebQoof noticed that the same ID number was present in both the viral document as well as the image on Facebook. This indicated the possibility of the former being altered.
As per the UAE authorities, the Emirates ID for each person is unique and can be availed by people residing in the country and not just citizens.
Other discrepancies: We then examined the back side of the document and found an error at its bottom (machine-readable zone).
While the front side allegedly mentioned Sharma's nationality as Egypt, the back side of the document carried the code "ATG".
It should be noted that ATG stands for Antigua and Barbuda.
Conclusion: It is evident that the viral document has been fabricated and is being shared with an incorrect claim.
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