Claim
A photograph featuring actor Kangana Ranaut has been revived on social media with a false claim that it shows Ranaut socialising with gangster Abu Salem, one of the main conspirators in the 1993 Mumbai blast case. The old picture resurfaced after Kangana Ranaut was declared as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate for Himachal Pradesh's Mandi constituency in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The image is being circulated with a Hindi caption that translates to, "Azadi Ki Rani 2014. Kangana.with Salim, the convict of 1993 Mumbai bomb case. What will the blind devotees say now? This ideal woman is the candidate of Bharatiya Janata Party for Himachal Pradesh Mandi Lok Sabha seat." (Original Text in Hindi: 2014 की आजादी की रानी. कंगना .1993 मुंबई बम कांड के .दोषी सलीम के साथ अब क्या बोलेंगे अंध भक्तों हिमाचल प्रदेश मंडी लोक सभा सीट की .भारतीय जनता पार्टी की उम्मीदवार है यह .आदर्श महिला). Click here to view one such post and here for an archive.
Fact
BOOM had already debunked the photo in 2020 when it went viral with the same false claim. We had then run a reverse image search on the picture and found the same image on an editorial piece by film journalist Mark Manuel for the Huffington Post published in 2017. Manuel also posted the same picture on his Facebook timeline in September 2017. The photo, as per the Facebook post, was clicked at The Korner House, a dine-in restaurant in Mumbai's Khar. In his post, Manuel mentioned that the photo was taken during a champagne brunch held to celebrate the release of Kangana Ranaut's film 'Simran'.