Pakistan’s prime minister’s office released a modified version of the official Shanghai Cooperation Organisation group photo, omitting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The original photograph featured all attending leaders in a single row, but Pakistan’s edited version cropped out Modi—and in some versions, Iran’s president—placing Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif closer to the center alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin. India’s prime ministerial office responded by sharing the full, unedited photo without commentary.
The move sparked online mockery and criticism from Indian media outlets, which described the editing as petty or amateurish. Pakistani officials did not provide a formal explanation for distributing the cropped image. Additionally, observers noted that separate footage from the summit showed Sharif with tense body language as Modi and Putin walked past him.
While the incident holds little practical diplomatic weight, it highlights the ongoing low-trust relationship between Islamabad and New Delhi. Such moments frequently draw outsized attention as visible symbols of tension between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, whose formal ties remain mostly frozen.