Claim: A picture shows a helicopter surveilling Lahore’s Zaman Park, where PTI workers and supporters had gathered for a rally in the wee hours of 9 March 2023.
Fact: One of the images is from Scotland and was shared first in 2020; the second picture is a screenshot from a video on a stock photography website. Neither have anything to do with the PTI or Zaman Park in Lahore.
On 9 March 2023, Twitter user @Pessimisto_ posted a picture (archive) claiming the Zaman Park neighbourhood of Lahore was swarming with helicopters as party workers and allies of the former prime minister Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had gathered for a rally in the area, which also houses one of Khan’s residences.
A clash between the PTI and authorities turned deadly when a party worker was allegedly killed in police detention, Express Tribune (archive) reported. Cops said several officers were injured as well, according to the publication.
The deceased was identified as Ali Bilal, commonly known as Zille Shah.
In their tweet, @Pessimisto_ wrote: “I am uploading this photo from inside Zaman Park that is not accessible for [the] general public. [At] the moment 5 different Surveillance helicopters are continuously flying around Zaman Park to calculate [the] number of PTI supporters gathered to show some resistance.”
Fact or Fiction?
After using reverse image search tools, Soch Fact Check flagged the photo as false. We used Google Lens to check if the picture had appeared elsewhere.
According to our search, the same visual was first published in the Daily Record in a 5 April 2020 news report titled “Police race to ‘ongoing incident’ near Kelpies as Helix Park locked down at Grangemouth” (archive).
The publication states that there was some incident, which warranted police action and, consequently, helicopters, near The Kelpies — featuring two almost 100-feet-tall sculptures of horse heads — located inside Helix Park in Scotland’s Grangemouth town.
A second image, which was included in another tweet (archive) posted by @Pessimisto_ a few minutes later, is also false.
Soch Fact Check found this image to be a screenshot from a video (archive) titled ‘Police Helicopter Searches From The City Night Sky With A Spotlight’ by BlackBoxGuild.
The video, along with a similar one from the same shooting location and the same user, is also available on the Adobe Stock website here (archive) and here (archive).
Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the three-day period from 8 March 2023 to 11 March using the search term “زمان پارک کے اوپر چار ہیلی کاپٹروں کی ساری رات سرویلنس جاری تھی”.
We found more than 13,000 interactions across over 100 posts on Facebook.
On Twitter, we came across multiple posts here, here, here, and here. @mofarooka — who has a verified blue check mark because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue, an $8-a-month service — also shared the photo.
Some of the tweets mentioning Zaman Park and helicopters carried slightly different captions, such as:
- “This photo from inside Zaman Park at the moment 5 different Surveillance helicopters are continuously flying around Zaman Park to calculate number of PTI supporters”
- “My friend in Zaman Park said the shelling was coming into their home. The peaceful Zaman park has become a battle ground”
- “Zaman Park was monitored by 4 helicopters throughout the night Was there a terrorist hiding in Zaman Park? And the police do not have so many helicopters, who provided these helicopters?”
- “زمان پارک کے اوپر چار ہیلی کاپٹروں کی ساری رات سرویلنس جاری تھی پولیس تو اتنی مالدار نہیں ھے پھر یہ ہیلی کاپٹر کس کے ہیں بھائی ڈرتے کیوں ھو؟ عوام سب جان چکے ھیں، سب پہچان چکے ھیں آپ لوگوں کو۔ اب تو ساری قوم کو تمہارا اصل چہرہ نظر آ چکا ہے۔🚨🚨🚨!!!”
Hashtags that were added to these tweets included #TimeToUnite, #Fascist_PDM, #Zaman_Park_Lahore, #زمان_پارک_پہنچو (#Reach_Zaman_Park), and #عمران_خان_ہماری_ریڈ_لائن (#Imran_Khan_Our_Red_Line).
One of the most popular tweets was this one by @ShahzadGill202 (archive) as it received more than 7,800 likes, 4,000 retweets and quote-retweets, and 160 comments. It gained over 139,000 views and was captioned as follows:
“زمان پارک کے اوپر چار ہیلی کاپٹروں کی ساری رات سرویلنس جاری تھی
پولیس تو اتنی مالدار نہیں ھے پھر یہ ہیلی کاپٹر کس کے ہیں
بھائی ڈرتے کیوں ھو؟
عوام سب جان چکے ھیں، سب پہچان چکے ھیں آپ لوگوں کو۔
اب تو ساری قوم کو تمہارا اصل چہرہ نظر آ چکا ہے۔🚨🚨🚨!!!
[Surveillance by four helicopters continued over Zaman Park throughout the night
The police are not that rich, then who owns these helicopters?
Brother, why are you afraid?
The people have become aware, everyone has recognized you.
Now the whole nation has seen your real face. 🚨🚨🚨!!!]”
@Pessimisto_ also posted numerous other dubious tweets here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The image appeared on Facebook here and here, the latter of which is a screenshot from WhatsApp containing a screenshot of a tweet by @Pessimisto_. Other posts that were shared more than 100 times can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: One of the images is from Scotland and was shared first in 2020; the second picture is a screenshot from a video on a stock photography website. Neither have anything to do with the PTI or Zaman Park in Lahore.
Background image in cover photo: @PTIOfficial
[…] also found another X post (archive) — by @ShahzadGill202, an account who has made a false claim in the past as well — that has more than 299,300 […]