A social media post (here, here, and here) claims that a few months after the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, Ratan Tata refused to ship even a single vehicle when the Pakistan government placed an order for Tata Sumo vehicles. It is also claimed that when the Taj group floated a tender for remodelling the Taj hotels after the 26/11 attacks, Pakistani companies also bid for it. To strengthen their bid, two Pakistani Industrialists allegedly tried to meet Ratan Tata through Minister Anand Sharma. When Anand Sharma called Ratan Tata requesting him to consider their tender, Ratan Tata allegedly replied, “You could be shameless, I am not,” and cut the call. We fact-check these claims through this article.
Claim: Ratan Tata did not export a single vehicle to Pakistan when the Pakistani government ordered Tata Sumos after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.
Fact: This claim is not true; it is an old Hoax that has been circulating on the internet for many years. Tata Motors themselves clarified this through their official ‘X’ handle. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To check the veracity of the viral claim, we performed a relevant keyword search. This search led us to a 2019 tweet by Tata Motors in which they clarified that this is a hoax while replying to a post of a ‘X’ user on the same issue.
In a tweet from 26 October 2019, Tata Motors said that the real reason for not exporting vehicles to Pakistan is that vehicles are on the negative list of imports from India as per the government policy of that country. In 2013 as well, ‘Tata Motors’ clarified the same on their ‘X’ handle.
They mentioned in the post that according to Pakistan’s rules, automobiles are on the ‘restricted list’ of goods they import from India. Their post mentioned that for that reason, the question of Pakistan ordering Tata Sumos does not arise.
According to the ‘Import Policy Order’ of 2022, which is available on the website of the ‘Ministry of Commerce’ of Pakistan, the import of goods from India and Israel to the country is banned (here and here). They can only import ‘therapeutic drugs’. This makes it clear that the viral claim is just an old Hoax that has been revived in the context of Ratan Tata’s demise.
Regarding the other claim in the post that Ratan Tata refused to meet Pakistani Industrialists after the 26/11 attacks, we did not find any credible evidence to substantiate this claim.
To sum up, an old Hoax is being viral again in the context of Ratan Tata’s death. Ratan Tata did not refuse to sell Tata Sumos to Pakistan after the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.
