Fact check: Man in viral photo with Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone is not Dawood Ibrahim

Hyderabad: A picture has gone viral on social media with a claim that Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone and her husband Ranveer Singh were seen with most wanted fugitive Dawood Ibrahim.

"Sandip Sigh, Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh with Dawood @iujjawaltrivedi (sic)," reads a tweet.

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The photo was also shared with the same claim on Facebook which has notched over 75 shares, but was deleted later. Click here to view the archive.

FACT CHECK:

This claim is false.

Newsmeter performed a reverse image search on Google and found the same photo published in an article by 'Pinkvilla' in August 2013. It is headlined: "Ranveer Singh & Deepika Padukone at the 'Ram Leela' iftar party". The uncropped picture also shows film director Sanjay Leela Bhansali with them.

A keyword search was conducted and it was found that Sandip Singh had shared this picture on his Instagram account and captioned it, "#Iftar is the time of huge blessings, try to gather as many as you can... Breaking bread together since 2013."

Sandip in his post tagged the people in the photo, which led to identify the man in the viral photo as production designer, Wasiq Khan. Khan had worked in the movie 'Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela' and celebrated Iftar with the team. Although this post is deleted on his profile, it is still on his Instagram.

https://instagram.com/officialsandipssingh?igshid=1m4rznu44ezdi

Below is a photo comparison of the man in the viral video (1), Wasiq Khan (2) and Dawood Ibrahim (3), through which we can say that the person in the viral picture is Wasiq Khan, a production designer and art director.

Furthermore, Khan also tweeted and clarified the news. "Friends, this is me and my name is not Dawood Ibrahim. I am Wasiq Khan, a poor production designer. The photograph was taken during an Iftaar party in 2012.... Amidst the chaos, I m sure CBI shall do a fair investigation and the departed soul shall get justice (sic)" read his tweet.

Therefore, it is clear that the claim the person seen in the viral picture is Dawood Ibrahim is false.