Video of a gunman attacking a family is not from Karachi
Ecuador shooting video went viral in Karachi, Pakistan
Claim: A social media video shows a gunman attacking a family on the roadside in Karachi, Pakistan.
Fact: The video is not from Pakistan but from a shooting in Ecuador in May 2022.
On 10 September 2022, a Twitter user shared a video with an Urdu caption that, when translated to English, reads, “Blind shooting at a family in Gulistan-e-Johar at Redapple and Baloch Icecream. The father passed away. In Karachi, nobody is secure.”
The 20-second video, which has been viewed over 6,650 times, shows two people in black baseball caps approach a car and start shooting. During the shooting, a mother and child can be seen huddle together inside the car.
The captions claim this incident took place around a restaurant, Redapple Johar, and a cafe, Baloch Icecream, in the Gulistan-e-Johar area of Karachi.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check conducted an InVID video analysis. The video was broken down into keyframes and the results led to a Twitter post published on 13 May 2022 by the verified account of the Metro Ecuador newspaper.
The tweet includes a 28-second clip that shows the attack from a wider angle. The caption, translated from Spanish, reads, “Merchant was shot inside his car while he was accompanied by his family, in Santa Elena.”
Another newspaper of Ecuador, El Universo also published a keyframe of the video and reported that the incident took place on 12 May 2022 in the 25 de Septiembre neighborhood of La Libertad, Santa Elena.
On 20 September 2022, Karachi police also denied the incident and clarified that the video is not from Pakistan.
Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the 30-days period from 27 August to 26 September 2022 using the Urdu caption as key term.
The results showed that the key term received 380 interactions across 9 posts on Facebook and the same video has been shared here, here, here, here and here between the above-mentioned time period.
Conclusion: The video of a gunman firing at a family in a car is not from Karachi. The incident took place in May 2022 at Santa Elena, Ecuador.
