Claim: According to the footage, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz called her uncle, the Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif, a thief.
Fact: An old video from October 2021 has been shared out of context. Nawaz was referring to the former prime minister Imran Khan, not Shehbaz Sharif.
A Facebook user posted a video (archive) that purportedly shows Maryam Nawaz, the Chief Minister of Punjab, calling Shehbaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, a thief. The text embedded in the video reads, “Maryam Nawaz called her uncle and the Form 47 Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif a thief in front of the public.”
In the video, Nawaz is speaking at a rally. She can be heard saying, “When sugar gets expensive, then understand that…” After a brief pause, Nawaz asks a man named “Zeeshan”, who is standing beside her, to open a banner that reads: “When the prices of electricity and petrol increase, then understand that the prime minister is a thief.”
The post also seemingly implies that after the increase in fuel prices at the beginning of the fiscal year 2025, the Chief Minister of Punjab, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, criticised the current prime minister, who is also her uncle, as a thief.
Fact or Fiction?
Reverse-searching keyframes from the video reveals that an old video of Maryam Nawaz has been shared out of context.
In October 2021, Aaj News posted a video (archive) about a rally by opposition parties, titled “Maryam Nawaz Latest Speech | PDM Faisalabad Jalsa | Aaj News”. From 3:31 to 4:01, the scenes in the video match those from the video being fact-checked, indicating that old footage has been reused misleadingly.
The complete quote by Nawaz in the Aaj News video also confirms that she was not referring to the incumbent Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The full quote at timestamp 2:46 is as follows:
“So, there was a person, one minute… Faisalabad walo… shhhhh, I have to say something. There was one person whose name was Imran Khan. He used to say that when wheat gets expensive, then you understand that the prime minister is a thief. When sugar gets expensive, then understand that… Zeeshan open this (poster)…”
A person standing beside her unrolls a banner. She then asks, “What is written on it?” and moves on to reading from the banner that states: “When the electricity and petrol prices increase, then understand that the prime minister is a thief.” At the end of the banner, the quote is attributed to “Imran Khan” from 2018. This indicates that Nawaz was referring to Khan, who served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan in 2021, and not to her uncle, Shehbaz Sharif.
Back then, Maryam Nawaz and Shehbaz Sharif’s party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, was a member of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), an alliance of opposition parties formed against the government of the former Prime Minister of Pakistan. So any rally or speech by Nawaz criticising the government was not directed at Shehbaz at the time.
Samaa News also posted the same video (archive) about the rally, titled [translated from Urdu into English]: “Today petrol is Rs 137, who is the thief now- Maryam Nawaz’s powerful speech at PDM rally” in October 2021. From 7:49 to 8:20, the scenes align with the footage from the claim, which confirms that the clip is indeed old.
Therefore, Maryam Nawaz did not call Shehbaz Sharif a thief but referred to Imran Khan, who was the Prime Minister of Pakistan in 2021.
Virality
The Facebook post was reshared 42,000 times and received 55,200 likes.
It also appeared on Facebook here and here.
On Instagram here, here, and here.
It also appeared on YouTube here and here.
On TikTok here.
Conclusion: In the video, Maryam Nawaz did not call Shehbaz Sharif a thief. Instead, she was criticising former Prime Minister Imran Khan at a rally in October 2021.
Background image in cover photo: SheThePeople
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