A Facebook page Narendra Modi – True Indian shared a post on January 22, claiming that Syed Mohammed Yusuf Shah, popularly known as Syed Salahuddin, had contested Kashmir assembly elections in 1987 on a Congress ticket. Salahuddin is a Kashmiri separatist militant and the head of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. At the time of writing this article, the post was shared over 5,600 times.
The post carried a stamp ‘The Fearless Indian’, which led us to the Facebook page that created the infographic in 2017. It has nearly 9,000 shares.
What is the truth?
The claim that Salahuddin contested for the seat of Kashmir MLA on Congress’s ticket in 1987 is false. He had, in fact, contested the elections on the ticket of the Muslim United Front (MUF).Several media reports – The Caravan, Rising Kashmir, India Today – have penned his fact, especially as the 1987 elections were a watershed moment in Kashmir’s political history.
Syed Salahuddin had fought the 1987 elections from the assembly constituency Amira Kadal.
False claim viral since 2017
That Syed Salahuddin contested on a Congress ticket is a false claim viral since 2017. Fake News website Post Card News (article now deleted) and website Kashmir News Observer had published articles citing Dainik Bhaskar as the source of the information. However, Dainik Bhaskar was falsely quoted as the media outlet itself wrote that Salahuddin was representing the MUF. The Quint had debunked the misinformation in 2017.
The usual suspects – Anshul Saxena, Gaurav Pradhan, Mahesh Vikram Hegde, Rishi Bagree – had helped spread the false claim.
In conclusion, Syed Salahuddin did not contest the 1987 Kashmir elections on a Congress ticket but fought on a Muslim United Front ticket.
This article was first published at Alt News.