Social media users falsely spread the news that former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan asked people to celebrate Ramadan early amid the food crisis in the country.

A tweet misled people into thinking ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan asked people to celebrate Ramadan early

By Fact Check Bureau: Pakistan is currently staring at one of its worst food crises in years. Reportedly, the government supply of subsidised wheat has nearly stopped. At the same time, prices of other essentials have skyrocketed as well. Grim videos of people fighting over wheat sacks and people protesting on the streets for food have surfaced on social media platforms.

Amid this extreme food shortage, a tweet containing a snippet of what looked like a report by Dawn, a leading newspaper in Pakistan, has been shared widely. The headline claims that former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has requested people to celebrate Ramadan early this year in the wake of this crisis.

The snippet of this alleged report by Dawn quotes Khan verbatim, “Let’s celebrate early Ramadan so we can fast instead of going hungry due to high inflation and scarcity of food.” The date mentioned in the report was January 18, 2023. The tweet also contained another snippet with the logo of “Kreately”, a popular “self-publishing” blog. The post stated that Khan asked citizens to modify (adjust) their faith.

But did Khan say anything of the sort? AFWA found that the news report was digitally created and that Khan had said no such thing.

AFWA Probe

We searched on the Internet for news reports about Khan’s supposed advice to the nation. The search didn’t yield any results that resembled the claim under investigation.

Thereafter, we went through all the pages of the electronic copy of Dawn’s January 18 edition. Considering the buzz this statement would have created, it should have found a place on the front page of all the leading dailies. However, we found nothing of this sort there as well.

To be cent per cent sure, we searched for Khan’s most recent statements or addresses. We came across a January 17 report by Dawn which stated that Khan had addressed the people of Pakistan for the first time after surviving an assassination attempt in the Wazirabad district of Punjab on November 3, 2022.

The report mentioned that Khan addressed the nation via video and spoke about his future plans to continue the long march that was brought to a halt after he was shot. He had said that as soon as he got better and was able, he would return to the streets.

We also observed that Dawn uses “Ramazan”, the Urdu spelling to refer to the Islamic holy month, and not the Romanised spelling of “Ramadan”.

Thereon, we looked into “Kreately“, whose logo was there on the post. We found several media reports accusing the online platform of “running a hate campaign” and “targeting voices critical of the BJP government”. Reportedly, it came into existence in May 2020 and has since found patronage from staunch Hindutva leader Kapil Mishra. The portal has been at the forefront of running social media storms like #BoycottBollywood. Its Twitter account was banned at least twice, as per media reports.

Thus, it’s amply clear that the viral post has been created digitally to mislead people and no such statements were issued by Khan.

(Written by Vikas Bhadauria)