FAKE ALERT: Old photo of PM Modi in Gujarat viral as him meeting Pakistani Hindu refugees in Rajasthan

CLAIM
Actor Gajendra Chauhan posted an old, black and white image of PM Modi talking with a group of people to claim that it was taken 31 years ago when he went to Barmer in Rajasthan to meet persecuted Hindus displaced from Pakistan.
Praising Modi, Chauhan claimed that this meeting happened when he was not even Gujarat CM.

Same photo was tweeted with the same claim by several other users.


TRUTH
The photo was taken in a village of Gujarat in 1980s. The men seen with PM in this picture are not persecuted Hindus from Pakistan.
VERIFICATION
Using reverse-image search, we found the same image posted in PM Modi's official website.
The photo features in a post titled 'Beyond the Emergency' and is captioned as 'Narendra Modi in a village of Gujarat'.
As per the post this image was clicked in 1980s when Modi was made the ‘Sambhaag Pracharak’ (equivalent of a regional organiser) as an appreciation of his activism and organisational work during the preceding years of Emergency. He was given charge of South and Central Gujarat.

As a part of his role, Modi traveled increasingly across Gujarat in the early 1980s. This gave him the opportunity to visit every Taluka and almost every village in the state. It gave him a first hand view of the problems people face and increased his resolve to work harder to solve them. When droughts, floods or riots struck he would lead the relief efforts too.
We also searched on Google with keywords 'Modi Barmer Hindus Pakistan' and found no photo of PM meeting with persecuted Hindus from Pakistan in Barmer.
However, we found a post from The Hindu dated April 12, 2014, where in his maiden mass-contact meeting in the Barmer constituency, the then BJP prime ministerial candidate promised that Pakistani Hindu refugees will be given equal rights and treated like other Indian citizens.
VERDICT
Times Fact Check has found that an old photo of PM Modi from Gujarat is being circulated with the false claim that it was clicked 31 years ago when he met Hindu refugees from Pakistan in Barmer.