Claim: Videos circulating online claim to show Pakistani politician Khwaja Saad Rafique expressing his support of Imran Khan during a conference panel, remarking that the public voted for someone who is now imprisoned.
Fact: The video has been misrepresented Rafique does not mention Imran Khan at any point in his speech.
On 21 October 2026, X user Daily Qudrat posted a clip showing Khawaja Saad Rafique speaking on a panel, claiming that leaders elected by the people have ultimately been jailed.
The video was posted alongside an Urdu caption that has been translated below:
عوام نے جس کو ووٹ دیا جو جیل گیا! خواجہ سعد رفیق عمران خان کے حق میں کھل کر بول پڑے؟ ووٹ کسی کو ملتا ہے منتخب کوئی اور ہوجاتا ہے!
[Translation:The public voted for someone who ended up in jail! Has Khawaja Saad Rafique openly spoken out in favor of Imran Khan? Votes go to one person, but someone else gets elected!]
The banner in red in the post reads as below:
“The one the people voted for went to jail! Khawaja Saad Rafique spoke openly in favor of Imran Khan”
Screenshot from Viral X post.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check ran a reverse-image search of the keyframe at the timestamp 4:34, where the panel of speakers can be seen, and found the name of the conference that Rafique was speaking at was called “National Policy Dialogue.” Based on this, we retrieved the date and telecasts of the UMT Lahore conference on multiple platforms between 5 and 6 September 2026.
One of the recordings of the conference was broadcasted by Dunya News titled “Khawaja Saad Rafique Addresses the Ceremony | Dunya News” where Khwaja Rafique is addressing the audience. There was no specific mention of Khan in the 2 minute and 50 seconds video.Rafique spoke about the new provinces and institutional reform. Although he did mention individuals being elected through public votes subsequently being imprisoned,.he notably only mentions politicians as a collective, and makes no reference to any one individual, including Imran Khan.
Screenshot from Dunya News coverage of National Policy Dialogue.
Similarly, a longer telecast of the UMT Conference was aired by 24 News HD. Upon reviewing, Khawaja Rafique makes the exact remarks shared by the viral claim at 20:05 into the video.However, in the remaining 10 minutes of his speech, he solely focuses on the topic of new provinces and institutional security.There is no further context about which incarcerated elected leaders he referred to earlier, so we can assume he was speaking generally.
Considering the wider context of the video, which is missing from the clip being shared, and the fact that Rafique never mentions any specific politicians, there is no evidence that he was expressing support for Imran Khan.
Virality
The misleading claim circulated across Facebook, Instagram and X, and was the most viral on Facebook in reel format with 11K views and 377 likes while being shared 156 times.
On X, the highest audience engagement was seen with 4.6K views and 188 likes.
Conclusion: Pakistani politician Khawaja Saad Rafique did not speak in support of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.The clips being posted online, taken from a conference in Lahore, are missing context and misrepresent his words.
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