Claim: A photo shows a police officer hitting a woman with a gun’s butt at Zaman Park, Lahore.
Fact: The photo is old. It actually shows a Taliban security personnel threatening a woman in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Fact or Fiction?
On 16 March 2023, journalist Armughan Aksi shared a photo on Twitter claiming that it shows a police officer hitting a woman at Zaman Park, Lahore.
“نہتی عورت کو بندوق کا بٹ مارتے ھوئے پولیس اہلکار کی یہ تصویر زمان پارک کی ھے
میں دعوے سے کہتا ھوں کہ اگر پاکستان کے نظام نے “سانحہ ماڈل ٹاؤن” کے کرداروں کو سزا دی ھوتی تو پاکستان میں یہ مناظر دوبارہ دیکھنے کو نہ ملتے [This photo of a policeman hitting a woman with a gun butt is from Zaman Park. I can say with surety that if the system of Pakistan had punished the suspects of the “Model Town Tragedy”, these scenes would not have been seen again in Pakistan]”, the tweet reads
Soch Fact Check found the claim to be false. A reverse image search led us to an article published by the Australian socialist newspaper Green Left on 13 October 2022. The report titled “Afghanistan: Hazaras in Kabul appeal for protection, visas” carries the same photo as the viral photo. It is accompanied by the caption, “A member of the Taliban security forces threatens a protester in Kabul.”
The photo surfaced on different social media platforms on different dates; it was posted on 8 October 2022 on TikTok, on 26 December 2022 on Facebook, and on 1 January 2023 on Twitter, as well as in an article on 1 December 2022.
Virality:
Soch Fact Check found the claim was shared here, here, here, here and here on Facebook.
On Twitter, the photo was posted here and here.
Armughan Aksi’s tweet, which has now been deleted, received 3,659 tweet views, 287 retweets and 454 likes at the time of writing.
Conclusion: The viral photo has been wrongly linked to the clashes in Zaman Park, Lahore. It’s an old photo from Kabul, Afghanistan.