Fact Check: Did Indian news channels misidentify Afghanistan central bank's new governor?
An image of the Taliban official is viral on social media. Users claim the man in the picture is Haji Mohammad Idris, the newly appointed acting governor of Afghanistan's central bank -- Da Afghanistan Bank.
By Sabya Singh Published on 11 Sep 2021 6:30 AM GMT
Hyderabad: An image of the Taliban official is viral on social media. Users claim the man in the picture is Haji Mohammad Idris, the newly appointed acting governor of Afghanistan's central bank -- Da Afghanistan Bank.
Archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/
A similar claim can be seen shared by Aaj Tak on its official Twitter account. Archived link: https://mobile.twitter.com/
Fact Check:
The claim is false.
Firstly, NewsMeter checked the official page Facebook page of Afghanistan's central bank and found that a picture was posted on August 23, 2021. In the picture, Idris can be seen sitting at the table. The caption when translated identified him as Haji Mohammad Idris also known as Moulvi Abdul Qahir.
When we translated, it read, "...In this meeting, Moulvi Abdul Qahir, who is famously known as Haji Mohammad Idris. He is the head of Afghanistan Ban. Ahmad and Moulvi Noor Ahmad Agha are his deputies..."
Idris can also be seen in this photo tweeted by the Afghan central bank, wearing a black turban.
We compared the viral picture with the one on the official page.
Further, we also found reports with photos of Idris on his appointment as the new acting governor of the bank. The photo matches with the man in the photo posted by Da Afghanistan Bank.
We did not find any match between the viral picture and the official image. We found the blue flag seen in the viral photo as that of Afghanistan's revenue department suggesting the photo was taken at a government office.
