Claim: JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has issued an apology for his recent remarks critical to the state.
Fact: The audio of the clip is AI-generated.
On 22 October 2026, a Facebook account named بلاول حان shared a clip of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl’s (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman apologising for his recent remarks critical to the state. The caption reads:
بریکنگ”
ریاست مخالف بیانات پر مولانا فضل الرحمن کی معذرت سامنے آگئی۔
“اب جب معذرت کر لی ہے تو بات ختم ہونی چاہیے۔ غلطی تسلیم کرنا ہی اصلاح کی پہلی علامت ہے
[Translation: “Breaking
Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman has issued an apology regarding his anti-state statements.
Now that an apology has been offered, the matter should be considered closed. Acknowledging a mistake is the first sign of reform.”]
The video surfaced after Rehman criticised the federal government’s decision to impose an emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Governor’s rule in KPK
On 11 October 2026, the federal government imposed an emergency and governor’s rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The development came after President Asif Ali Zardari gave his approval under Articles 232 and 234 of the Constitution, dealing with the proclamation of emergency in a province and imposition of governor’s rule in case of “failure of constitutional machinery” in a province, respectively.
President Zardari approved the summary after his meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif a day earlier, on 10 October 2026, where they discussed the possibility of imposing an emergency in KPK. The move comes after the talks between the PML-N led federal government and the PTI-led government in the province reached a “deadlock” on 3 October when the two sides had met to discuss PTI’s long march to Islamabad and counter-terrorism policy in KPK.
Following the imposition of governor’s rule in KPK, the federal government formed an 11-member technocratic KP Advisory Council to assist Governor Faisal Karim Kundi with taking charge of the province. Simultaneously, KPK Information Minister Shafi Jan and MNA Shahid Khattak took to their X accounts and claimed that Afridi had been arrested. A day later, on 12 October 2026, Chaudhry confirmed to Reuters that Afridi and some of his cabinet members were in preventive custody. He further clarified that those facing criminal cases would be charged and tried while the rest will be released.
Later, on 16 October 2026, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman accused the federal government of depriving provinces of its rights. Addressing a rally in Multan, Rehman raised doubts over the Centre’s justification for imposing an emergency in KPK i.e. PTI’s lack of cooperation on counter-terrorism policy.
He stated, “It’s not about PTI; it’s about the principle that wherever there is an opposition government, you topple it, and that FATA whose reserves and resources had become part of the province – you’ve imposed an emergency and made all those resources subject to the federation.”
On the same day, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told journalists in Lahore that the “head of a party is upset” about not being appointed the governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, seemingly referring to Rehman. State Minister for Interior Tallal Chaudhry also criticised the chief for seeking his “share” in KP’s governance following the imposition of an emergency in the province.
On 17 October 2026, Rehman addressed another press conference in Lahore and clarified that he intended to criticise policies, not the institutions. Simultaneously, he also called for an in-camera Parliament session to discuss the country’s security situation and reiterated his objection to the imposition of emergency rule in KPK.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check first searched for credible news organisations reporting on any apology issued by Rehman, but couldn’t find anything. We then conducted a reverse-image search to trace the original source of the video which led to the official YouTube channel of the JUI-F chief where the clip had been posted on 15 July 2026, predating the claim.
In the original video, titled “Maulana Fazl ur Rehman Video Message For Joint Action Committee 15 July 2026”, Rehman can be heard appealing to the banned Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, to pause their ongoing protests against 12 seats reserved in the legislative assembly for refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir. The JUI-F chief detailed that he had been chosen to play a mediating role between the government and JAAC and also shared that Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had also assured him that he will relay their concerns to the Centre.
Since the old date and context of the video are completely different from the claim under investigation, Soch Fact Check ran the clip through a few AI-detection tools to check for manipulated audio.
UncovAI, an AI content detection platform based in France and backed by NVIDIA Inception, flagged the video as 96% human, and the audio as 100% AI-generated.
Result by UncovAI.
To further confirm this result, Soch Fact Check ran the video’s audio through Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector. It gave an authenticity score of 2/100 and 2/100 for different parts of the audio, concluding that the sampled voice is “likely a deepfake.”
Result by Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector.
The fact that the original video predates Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s criticism of the government imposing an emergency in KPK, and the results from AI detection tools confirm that the claim is false. The audio of his clip, apologising for his remarks, is AI-generated.
Virality
Soch Fact Check first came across a viral post on Facebook with as many as 33,000 views and 452 likes.
The clip also received 6,700, 16,000 and 1,800 additional views after it was shared on the platform via separate posts.
Conclusion: The audio of Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s video apologising for his remarks critical to the state is AI-generated. The clip can be traced back to 15 July 2026 when he requested the banned Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, to pause their protests.
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