Claim: A video shows a leopard attacking a pet dog inside a house in Balakot, in Mansehra District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Fact: The video surfaced on social media in December 2021 and is from Sundar Bazar Municipality in Lamjung district in Nepal. Fact or Fiction? On 8 October 2022, Facebook user Sheikh Sohaib shared […]
Claim: A viral image of what appears to be Pakistani men holding up a banner reading “We don’t want Kashmir, give us Virat Kohli” shared on social media. Fact: The image is doctored. The original picture shows pro-Pakistan residents of Kashmir holding a banner that read, “We want independence”. On 23 October 2022, Pakistan and […]
Claim: The thumbnail image of an Urdu-language video shared by 24 News on YouTube and Facebook mentions that “more than 150 people have been martyred” in a “horrible blast”, accompanied by an image of an explosion. Fact: The thumbnail image is false because there has been no blast that killed over 150 people in October […]
Claim: Inspector General of Sindh Police, Ghulam Nabi Memon, claimed in a statement reported by ARY News that Karachi has a relatively lower crime rate compared to other cities in the world. Fact: According to data from the UNODC and crowd-sourced global statistics, Karachi is not one of the safer cities in the world. On […]
Claim: A report by The Associated Press claims an amendment to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018, proposed by the Government of Pakistan, will allow transgender individuals to choose their gender identity on previously-issued official documents and that hardline clerics are opposing the suggested changes. Fact: Five different amendments were put forward by senators […]
Claim: Former England captain and renowned commentator Nasser Hussain said that the umpires made some decisions in favour of India during the recent T20 World Cup 2022 match against Pakistan. Fact: The statement was wrongly attributed to the commentator in posts shared online. Hussain clarified that the quote was fake and urged a social media […]
Claim: An image of a car’s bloodied interior shows the aftermath of Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif’s alleged assassination. Fact: The picture is, in fact, of the inside of the car in which Maulana Muhammad Adil Khan, a religious scholar and Jamia Farooqia Karachi’s rector, was assassinated in October 2020. It has no relation whatsoever to […]
Claim: A data table shows that 28,723 people changed the gender they were assigned at birth through the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) from July 2018 to June 2021. Fact: The NADRA has categorically termed the portrayal of the data as “misinterpretation”, saying that it is “not related to gender reassignment”. A spokesperson, Faik […]
Claim: ‘Behind Closed Doors’, a documentary made by filmmakers Michael Oswald and Murtaza Mehdi about Pakistan’s Sharif family, is set to be released on streaming services Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Fact: The director of ‘Behind Closed Doors’, Michael Oswald, confirmed to Soch Fact Check that no deal has been signed with either Netflix or […]
Claim: Pakistan People’s Party has decided to suspend the membership of politician Aitzaz Ahsan over controversial remarks. Fact: Although there are demands within the party to suspend Aitzaz Ahsan, the Central Executive Committee of the party has made no such decision. On 14 October 2022, mainstream news websites and social media posts reported that Pakistan […]
Claim: A child in the Pashtoon Abad neighbourhood of Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s Balochistan province, died due to the oral polio vaccine (OPV) administered to her in September 2022. Fact: The doctor who treated the child confirmed that she died due to severe pneumonia, a condition in which food or liquid enters the airways […]
Claim: A video shows gunmen opening fire at a crowd in the Pul-e-Khumri area of Afghanistan, reportedly killing 51 people over a dispute about a donkey. Fact: The video is from an 8 September 2022 incident, when two groups in Karachi, Pakistan clashed over a money dispute. Fact or Fiction? On 15 September 2022, Daily […]