Claim: An image claims to show a nine-year-old girl named Hania Ahmed who was recently accidentally shot and killed by the Crime Control Department in Punjab.
Fact: The image does not show Hania Ahmed.
On 14 June 2026, a Facebook page named TrendX Pakistan shared a collage of two pictures: one image showed a bullet riddled car and the other image featured a young girl. The text on the post reads: “9-Year-Old Hania Ahmed Dies After Police Open Fire on Family Car in Pakistan.”
The account wrote in the caption:
“A nine year old Australian-Pakistani girl, Hania Ahmed, was killed after police allegedly opened fire on her family’s vehicle in Chakwal, reportedly mistaking it for a car linked to armed robbers. Her father and brother were also injured in the incident. The tragic case has drawn attention in both Pakistan and Australia, with authorities launching an investigation and suspending an officer involved in the shooting. How can such mistakes be prevented in the future? Disclaimer: Reports are based on statements from police officials, family members, and media coverage. Investigations are ongoing. #Chakwal #ChakwalIncident #HaniaAhmad #CCDPUNJAB.”
The news went viral with the girl’s picture on X as well as Instagram. Other news outlets like The Express Tribune, ARY News, Pakistan Today, and Daily Pakistan also reported the incident with the same picture.
Girl’s picture shared by different news outlets
CCD, Punjab firing kills minor girl
On the night of 10 June 2026, the Crime Control Department in Chakwal, Punjab opened fire on a family’s car, mistaking them for robbers. The firing killed a nine-year-old girl named Hania Ahmed, and injured her father, Adeel Ahmed, and brother, Aafan Ahmed.
Adeel Ahmed is an Australian national who had recently arrived in Pakistan with his wife Sidra Khan and two children. The couple left for Hajj and returned on the morning of 10 June 2026. Sidra Khan’s maternal uncle, Ali Ejaz, told Dawn that the family came to meet him on the same day at his home which is adjacent to CCD’s station.
According to Ejaz’s account quoted in Dawn, as soon as the family stopped their car in front of his house, two robbers arrived on a motorcycle and asked them to hand over all the jewellery and cash they had. During this confrontation, a CCD officer spotted the robbers and opened fire. The robbers then fled the scene and Adeel Ahmed also drove off. The CCD officer, along with his colleagues, mistook Ahmed’s car as belonging to the robbers and opened indiscriminate fire which ended up killing Hania while injuring Ahmed and his son Aafan. His wife Sidra Khan remained unhurt.
The incident has sparked nationwide outrage. A statement by the CCD, Punjab claims that the officer who opened fire on the car has been suspended and booked for the girl’s murder. According to the department’s statement, the officer only retaliated after the suspects opened fire first.
However, in an interview with SBS Urdu, Adeel Ahmed shared that the CCD officer was the one who started firing first. He expressed extreme dissatisfaction with how the case was proceeding, and demanded that CCD release the complete footage from the CCTV cameras placed outside their office.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check came across a BBC article reporting on the tragic incident, titled “Australia demands answers after girl taken hostage is shot dead by Pakistan police”. It featured an image of Hania with her father.
The girl in this picture is different from the image going viral on several news outlets and social media accounts. The BBC has credited the Ahmed family for the picture whereas other outlets cited no source at all.
Comparison of the two picture; left: Picture in the claim, right: Picture published by the BBC
Other international credible publications like The Guardian and ABC News have also featured images of Hania in which she resembles the girl in the image published by the BBC.
Images published by ABC News (left) and The Guardian (right)
For verification, Soch Fact Check reached out to Mazhar Hussain, Hania’s paternal grandfather. When asked if the image under investigation is of his deceased granddaughter, he replied: “Fake picture.” The team further asked Hussain if he can share a picture of Hania directly with us. Soch Fact Check will update this article on receiving a response from Hania’s grandfather.
The source of the image under investigation remains unknown. However, Hussain’s initial reply and the picture published by the BBC confirms that the picture in the claim is unrelated, and does not show Hania Ahmed.
Virality
Soch Fact Check first came across a viral post on Facebook with as many as 10,900 likes and 1,800 shares. The image went viral further after news outlets like The Express Tribune and ARY News also shared it without verification.
The image also went viral on X and Instagram, garnering views as high as 17,000 and 11,700, respectively.
Conclusion: The image under investigation is not of nine-year-old Hania who was killed by the Crime Control Department in Punjab.
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