Video does not show PTI rally from January 2024

Claim: Video shows massive support from PTI workers as they fill the streets in Lahore in response to PTI’s call to protest in January 2024.

Fact: This is an old video from when Imran Khan was en route to the Judicial Complex in Islamabad. 

On 28 January 2024, a video shared on X, claimed to show a scene from the PTI rally in Lahore which was organised in response to PTI leaders’ call for rallies. On 27 January 2024, PTI’s leaders called on their workers to come out on the street to demand a fair and transparent election and “to come out at 2 pm and hold rallies and public meetings in their constituencies.” according to PTI Secretary Raoof Hasan’s statement given to Dawn.com.

Fact or Fiction?

From reverse image searching key frames of the video on Google, reading old articles and speaking to PTI’s former media strategist, Soch Fact Check concluded that this video is originally from Islamabad and not Lahore. 

The highlighted area in a key frame from this video is a metro bus station and a pedestrian bridge connected to it with red sheds behind a very broad road which is most likely a highway. This image from Google Maps shows the other side of this station and Soch Fact Check is able to independently verify that this image shows the Kashmir Highway.  

The highlighted area in this key frame shows the windshield of a black car  surrounded by people and covered with flower petals. 

In addition, we found that the same claim was also shared on Facebook earlier in May 2023, which also proves that this video was recorded and shared before January 2024. An article reporting Khan’s journey to attend the hearing, published in March 2023 by Gulf News shares a close-up photograph of a car similar to the one highlighted in the keyframe above. 

Looking at live coverage of the event by GNN HD, SAMAA TV, and the one shared by Imran Khan’s official YouTube channel, we discovered that the video in the claim is also coverage of the PTI Chairman, Imran Khan’s journey from Lahore to Islamabad to attend the hearing at the Judicial Complex in G-11. 

More images from the time can be seen attached to this article by Dawn.com, which explains the Toshakhana case for which Khan was called to the Judicial Complex. According to the article, “PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s arrest warrants in Toshakhana case were cancelled on Saturday [18 March 2023] as Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Zafar Iqbal allowed him to leave after marking his attendance due to clashes between Islamabad Police and PTI workers outside the Judicial Complex.” 

Soch Fact Check also reached out to Imran Ghazali, PTI’s former media strategist, who confirmed that the video in question is from the time when Imran Khan was heading to the Judicial Complex in G-11, Islamabad, through the Kashmir Highway, also called the Srinagar Highway. 

Virality

On X, the video was viewed more than 360,900 times.

On Facebook the same claim was shared here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, receiving more than 7,000 views. 

Conclusion: A viral video with captions that imply it shows a PTI rally from January 2024 is actually from 18 March 2023 when Imran Khan traveled from Lahore to Islamabad to present himself in a court hearing in the Judicial Complex in G-11, Islamabad. 

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Background image in cover photo: Adobe Stock 

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