The Ministry of External Affairs on Friday, 3 January, slammed Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan for peddling "fake news" after he tweeted a video of what he claimed was police action in Uttar Pradesh but turned out to be of an incident in Bangladesh.
"Tweet Fake News. Get Caught. Delete Tweet. Repeat," Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted with hashtag 'Old habits die hard'.
India’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Syed Akbaruddin, too tweeted with the same hashtag along with a video, calling the Pakistani establishment “repeat offenders”.
Meanwhile, the UP police did a fact check of their own, saying the video is from a 2013 incident in Bangladesh’s Dhaka. “The RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) written on the vests at 0:21s, 1:27s or the Bengali spoken, or these links would help you be better informed,” the police said in a tweet, tagging Khan’s tweet.
Imran Khan had shared the video on his Twitter handle claiming that it was of police violence targeting Muslims in UP. He captioned it – “Indian police's pogrom against Muslims in UP".
Twitterati soon called out the Pakistan prime minister for tweeting misinformation. Later, the tweeted videos were deleted from his account.
(With inputs from PTI.)
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