BJP MP Falls for Fake ‘Sara Ali Khan’ Twitter Handle

In his excitement about Gujarat results, BJP MP Pratap Simha fell for a well-known fake account.

The Twitter handle is known for its bigoted, pro-BJP, nationalistic tweets since it was created in June 2017.

(Photo: Twitter Screengrab/@IronyOfIndia)

“See the level of understanding actor Saif Ali Khan’s daughter is showing, which is lacking in grey haired and bald-headed journos n political pundits”, tweeted BJP MP Pratap Simha after the announcement of Gujarat election results.

He was quoting a tweet from an unverified handle cheering Narendra Modi and mocking Rahul Gandhi. A red-faced Simha had to quietly delete his tweet when it turned out that the only questionable level of understanding was his own. In his excitement about Gujarat results, he had fallen for a well-known fake account.

The Twitter handle @SaraKhanWorld that claims to be “an official Twitter page of actress Sara Ali Khan, daughter of Saif Ali Khan & Amrita Singh” is known for its bigoted, pro-BJP, nationalistic tweets since it was created in June 2017.

The account has 15,000 followers. It has only 33 tweets because it regularly deletes old tweets. Even as we were writing this article, the mastermind behind this account has changed the profile to that of Rani Mukherjee @StarRaniMukherjee. Only the very naïve would believe that the hateful messages coming out from this account are those of Saif Ali Khan’s daughter, a young girl waiting to make her Bollywood debut.

Here is sample of tweets from this account:

“Instant #TripleTalaq would be a criminal offence in India except for in state of J&K, so dear Muslims if you want to divorce your wives you know where to take them for vacations. Law can change a human behaviour, but it can’t change the mind of animals and MUSLIMS!”

It was also caught sharing an image of refugees in Europe as Bangladeshi refugees in West Bengal.

In June this year, BoomLive had analysed the tweets of this account to show how this fake account “almost always tweets in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Indian army and is vocal against liberals, Islam and opposition parties such as Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).”

Many of those tweets are now deleted. BoomLive had also contacted Sara Ali Khan’s mother, Amrita Singh, who confirmed that her daughter was not on Twitter.

The account was only a few weeks old then and had 5,000 followers. Today six months later, the account is still active in spreading venom on social media.

Its follower count has grown three times and its reach has widened with even a BJP MP sharing its tweet. It is unclear why Twitter has not yet acted against this account that is clearly impersonating celebrities and their kids.

(This story was originally published on AltNews and has been republished with permission.)