Claim: Punjab Police has assaulted a group of women waiting in a line to get flour during the rule of Punjab’s new chief minister, Maryam Nawaz Sharif.
Fact: The video is not recent and, therefore, not linked to the time period Maryam Nawaz has been serving as the chief minister of Punjab. It is, in fact, from 2019, when police officers assaulted a group of women near a district court in Multan.
On 19 March 2024, X (formerly Twitter) user @Lalika79 posted (archive) a video showing police brutality against at least four women and wrote the following caption:
“ٹک ٹاکر فارم ۴۷ والی وزیراعلی کا دور ہے آٹے کے بدلے چپیڑیں ٹُھڈے ملے گے
[It is the era of the TikToker, Form-47 Chief Minister, one will get slaps and kicks, instead of flour.]”
Maryam Nawaz — the senior vice president of the ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), and daughter of Pakistan’s former premier and party supremo, Nawaz Sharif — took oath (archive) as the chief minister of Punjab on 26 February 2024.
The National Assembly of Pakistan convened (archive) its maiden session on 29 February 2024 despite the PTI claiming that the 2024 general elections were rigged. On 4 March, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif was elected (archive) the country’s prime minister after beating PTI-backed candidate, Omar Ayub Khan.
The term “Form-47 Chief Minister” likely stems from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) crying foul (archive) after the 2024 general elections, claiming that the results of 18 seats “allegedly won by the party were ‘falsely changed’”.
The party’s supporters have regurgitated the claim multiple times on social media platforms, while independent candidates backed by the PTI filed petitions in courts across the country “contesting discrepancies between Form-47 [tallied data from Form-45s], issued by returning officers (ROs), and the data on Form-45 [document containing unofficial voter data from polling stations]”.
However, on 13 February, the Lahore High Court (LHC) rubbished the petitions and termed them inadmissible. It “directed petitioners to seek redressal from the Election Commission under the Election Act”, The Express Tribune reported (archive).
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check used keyframes from the viral video as input in reverse image search tools and ascertained that the clip is not recent.
We found two X posts — here and here (archive), the latter by Pakistani journalist and columnist Rauf Klasra — from 5 September 2019, wherein both stated that the officers seen in the video belonged to the Punjab Police.
Read more: Doctored Iqama of Maryam Nawaz resurfaces on social media
The clip also resurfaced last year when journalist Hamid Mir, a Geo News talk show host, posted (archive) it on X on 25 March 2023. In the quotes of this post, we found that a user had shared (archive) a screenshot of a YouTube video, which was posted on 23 June 2019 with the title “Punjab Police Torture On Women Multan kacheri”. Addressing Mir in 2023, user @Awais_Yarr had written: “Sir delete the tweet You are wrong and this video is old dating from 2019 PTI era.”
To verify user @Awais_Yarr’s screenshot, we searched the video on the YouTube channel Benaqab and found that it was indeed posted on 23 June 2019 here (archive).
The incident was reported in June 2019 by Daily Jang and Daily Pakistan here (archive) and here (archive), where it is mentioned that the manhandling took place at a district court in Multan and that one of the men slapping the women was identified as the Chehlyak Police Station House Officer (SHO) Inspector Salamat Ali.
Also read: Video does not show police brutality against PTI’s women workers
The X post by @Lalika79 is misleading since the user dated the video inaccurately and falsely put the blame on the current Punjab government led by Maryam Nawaz when, in fact, the incident occurred during the government of former prime minister Imran Khan, the incarcerated PTI chief.
Virality
The post by @Lalika79 has garnered over 83,600 views as of writing time.
Soch Fact Check found that the video was also posted by a blue-check X account named “Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Jhang” here, where it gained over 81,600 views.
The clip was also posted here on YouTube.
Conclusion: The video is not recent and, therefore, not linked to Maryam Nawaz Sharif. It is, in fact, from 2019, when police officers assaulted a group of women near a district court in Multan.
Background image in cover photo: Punjab Police
To appeal against our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com