Claim: Azaad Urdu reported that Information Minister Attaullah Tarar defended rape allegations against Raza Dar.
Fact: The post is doctored and Tarar has not made any such statement.
On 4 July 2026, a Facebook account called ‘Ai video’ shared a text post by Azaad Urdu, which quoted the Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar as saying:
رضا ڈار جوان ہے جوانی میں ایسی غلطیاں ہو جاتی ہیں اگر ریپ کر دیا”
“تو کوئی قیامت نہیں آگئی سی سی ڈی اگر دو چار لوگوں کو چھوڑ رہی تو سوشل میڈیا کو کیا تکلیف ہے بئی ؟
[Translation: “Raza Dar is young; such mistakes happen in one’s youth. If he committed rape, it’s not the end of the world. If the CCD is letting a few people off the hook, why does social media have a problem with it?”]
Kidnapping case of two foreign women in Lahore
On 2 July, the Lahore police registered a case against five people suspected of kidnapping and sexually assaulting two foreign women. The FIR available with Soch Fact Check lists section 365A (kidnapping or abducting for extorting property, valuable security, etc) and 375A (gang rape). It mentioned a man named Muhammad Raza Dar, another person the women referred to as his “boss”, and three other men.
A copy of the FIR obtained by Soch Fact Check
The FIR stated that the two women named Stephanie and Astrid, a Dutch and a Venezuelan national respectively, first met Dar in Singapore in October 2025. According to Stephanie’s statement cited in a report by Dawn, he invited them to Pakistan and arranged their visas under the pretence of introducing them to new investors for her company. Soch Fact Check also obtained her original statement to the judicial magistrate in which she stated that she and Astrid arrived in Islamabad on 26 June and spent three days at a hotel.
An excerpt from Stephanie’s statement to the judicial magistrate on 2 July 2026
An excerpt from Stephanie’s statement to the judicial magistrate on 2 July 2026
In her statement, Stephanie added that they travelled to Lahore with Dar on 29 June 2026 where he lured them into a house under the pretext of celebrating a relative’s birthday. However, they found the residence empty. She added that within fifteen minutes, four armed men stormed inside and tied up both the women, after which they demanded high amounts of ransom. She stated that Dar initially pretended to be a victim too but later his complicity with the armed men had become evident.
According to the Dawn report, she accused the kidnappers of demanding $2 million and electronically transferring $17,000 in cryptocurrency from her accounts. She also detailed an account of sexual assault that took place on 30 June which was confirmed by medical reports issued on 6 July after the DNA of three of the suspects matched.
DIG Lahore Muhammad Faisal Kamran said in a press briefing that the FIR was registered after a man named Carlos, the father of one of the women, called the emergency helpline “15” from Spain and alerted the Defence assistant superintendent of police (ASP) about the situation.
Kamran added that the victims were rescued after the car transporting them to another location crashed into another vehicle which gave them the opportunity to escape and seek shelter in a shop near Bhatta Chowk. After being rescued, they departed from the country on 3 July, he added.
DIG Kamran also confirmed that when his team was trying to trace the suspects, they spoke to a few people living in the raided houses who informed them that the place was previously rented out by the relatives of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar. A police official then identified one of the suspects as Muhammad Raza Dar after confirming the information from his family.
Dawn quoted police officials investigating the case claiming that a total of eight suspects have been arrested in the case, including someone the victims referred to as the “boss” who was providing instructions to the other men via a phone call, as described in the FIR.
On 3 July, the judicial magistrate at Cantt Courts in Lahore issued a remand order, a copy of which is available with Soch Fact Check, that approved a five-day physical remand for Ahmad Raza, Sikandar Aziz Khan, Hassan Raza and Sajid Ali. Later, on 13 July, the court extended their remand by four more days.
Remand order approved by the judicial magistrate in Cantt Court on 3 July
On 5 July 2026, the Prime Minister’s Adviser on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah appeared on Geo News’ show ‘Naya Pakistan’ and stated that Deputy PM Ishaq Dar is being dragged in this matter “unnecessarily.”
“A non-issue is being turned into an issue. This matter is being stretched from left and right to create an effect for him [Ishaq Dar]. Even if his [Dar’s] relative is involved, no matter how close they are, he [Dar] is not responsible for his [Raza] words and actions,” Sanaullah stated.
Fact or Fiction?
Considering the serious nature of the alleged statement, Soch Fact Check first looked for credible publications quoting Tarar, and if he had issued any statement on the case. However, we didn’t find anything.
Soch Fact Check also couldn’t locate the text post under investigation on the social media accounts of Azaad Urdu. We then took our first cue from a QR code on the bottom-left side of the image which led to a video posted on X by ARY News. The clip, dated 2 May 2025, included an interview of Tarar with anchorperson Muhammad Malick. The caption of the post read:
“عمر ایوب کے دادا صدر پاکستان تھے اور میرے دادا بھی صدر تھے لیکن میرے خون میں پاکستانیت ہے۔۔ وزیر اطلاعات عطا تارڑ-”
[Translation: “Omar Ayub’s grandfather was the President of Pakistan and my grandfather was also the President, but Pakistantaniyat is in my blood – Information Minister Atta Tarar.”]
In the eight-minute and thirty-six-second long video, Malick and Tarar discussed the May 2025 Pakistan-India war. The anchorperson aired a clip of former PTI leader Omar Ayub criticizing Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif over “forfeiting” to India. Tarar then makes the same statement, quoted in the caption, at the 4:25 mark.
The QR code didn’t lead to any post or video showing Tarar’s alleged statement on Raza Dar.
Then, we conducted a keyword search of “عطا تارڑ” on Azaad Urdu’s X account to analyse all the text posts quoting Tarar and found a post which looked similar to the one shared in the claim. It mentioned the same statement that was quoted in ARY News’ X post and was also posted on the same date i.e 2 May 2025.
Left: Azaad Urdu’s original post on 2 May 2025, Right: The post under investigation on 4 July 2026
Both posts feature the same image of Tarar. The QR code on the original Azaad Urdu post is also identical to the one in the claim as it also led to the same X post by ARY News. The font of the text in the post being fact-checked, however, is different from the one used in Azaad Urdu’s original post. Therefore, the image in the claim appears to be a doctored version of the original Azaad Urdu post from 2 May 2025.
Soch Fact Check thus confirms that the image in the claim has been edited to attribute a false statement to Tarar. He did not make any such statement.
Virality
Soch Fact Check first came across a viral Facebook post with as high as 475 likes and 1,000 reshares. It was also widely shared by other accounts on the platform.
Soch Fact Check has also debunked other false claims around this case.
Conclusion: Information Minister Attaullah Tarar did not issue any statement defending Raza Dar, one of the suspects involved in the kidnapping and sexual assault of two foreign women in Lahore. The text of the post in the claim has been edited.
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