Claim: The Punjab government issued a notification approving a PKR 40 million “special” grant for the “personal makeup” of two provincial ministers, Marriyum Aurangzeb and Azma Bokhari.
Fact: No such notification was issued by the Punjab government. The document was generated using Google’s AI tools.
On 19 January 2026, multiple social media users shared a notification apparently issued by the Punjab government, approving a “special grant” worth PKR 40 million for the “personal makeup and presentation expenses” of Punjab Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb and Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari (archived here, here, here, here, and here, respectively).
The accompanying captions read as follows:
“پنجاب حکومت کی طرف سے مریم اورنگزیب اور عظمی بخاری کے میک اپ کے لیے 4 کروڑ فنڈ گرانٹ جاری۔ پنجاب کے عوام پر مسلط ٹولے کا خرچے
[The Punjab government releases a 4-crore fund grant for the make-up of Marriyum Aurangzeb and Azma Bokhari. The cost of the troupe imposed on the people of Punjab]”
Dated 12 January 2026, the notification includes the subject “Grant of funds for personal makeup of provincial ministers” and reads as follows:
“The Competent Authority is pleased to accord sanction to the release of a special grant of Rs. 4,00,00,000/- (Rupees Four Crore only) in favor of Ms. Mariyum Aurangzeb, Senior Minister, and Ms. Azma Zahid Bukhari, Minister for Information, Government of the Punjab, for their personal makeup and presentation expenses.”
The notification is signed by a “Section Officer (Cabinet-I)”.
Ministers at Junaid Safdar’s wedding
It circulated shortly after pictures surfaced online of Aurangzeb and Bokhari from the wedding ceremony of Junaid Safdar, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s son, and Shanzeh Ali Rohale, the granddaughter of former Pakistani lawmaker, Shaikh Rohale Asghar.
Both Aurangzeb and Bokhari are associated with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.
Many social media users noticed Aurangzeb’s remarkable transformation, as reported by multiple news outlets.
Later, her mother, Tahira Aurangzeb, told the media that her daughter “only lost weight” but did not undergo any surgeries. “She had been following a strict diet for the past two or three months,” she said.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check observed multiple inconsistencies in the notification in question.
For example, the header includes only the coat of arms of the Punjab government in the centre but does not mention the provincial finance department, which usually issues such notifications. It also does not feature a serial number.
The notification spells the provincial ministers’ names incorrectly: “Mariyum” instead of “Marriyum” and “Bukhari” instead of “Bokhari.”
In terms of formatting, the two ministers’ designations are in bold but the words “for Information” in Bokhari’s title is not.
An official notification from the Punjab government typically includes the words “NO. AND DATE EVEN” at the end, not “Distribution:”. The listed names also include errors; for example, there’s a colon between the name “Ms. Mariyum: Aurangzeb” and the incorrect text “Ms. Government of Punjab” also appears there.
Aurangzeb’s name appears twice at the bottom, with the second instance reading as, “Ms. Mariyum Senior Minister, of Punjab.”
Errors highlighted in the viral notification (left), which also contains missing elements that are marked in authentic documents issued by the Punjab Finance Department on 12 February 2025 (centre) and 3 November 2023 (right) and provided here for comparison.
We tested the notification in Hive Moderation to see if it was generated using artificial intelligence (AI). The tool yielded a probability of 94%.
We then checked if the notification contained SynthID, an imperceptible watermark embedded in all content generated by Google’s AI tools.
“Based on a digital analysis, most or all of this image was edited or generated with Google AI,” concluded SynthID Detector, which currently works through Gemini in Pakistan. It added that its confidence level was “very high”.
Lastly, Bokhari herself also rebutted the notification on X (formerly Twitter) by posting (archive) its picture with a “FAKE” stamp over it.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the viral notification in question is false.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the fake notification circulating here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here on Facebook, here, here, here, here, and here on Instagram, and here, here, here, here, and here on Threads.
The notification in question was also shared alongside Sindhi-language captions. Examples of such posts can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: No such notification was issued by the Punjab government. The document was generated using Google’s AI tools.
Background image in cover photo: azmabokharipmln
To appeal against our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com