CLAIM
A video which claims that the Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has been shot in Pakistan is being circulated on WhatsApp.
In the video, a large crowd is urgently rushing somewhere, and some men and policemen amidst them are carrying a man who seems to have been severely injured. The man, whom the post claims is Imran Khan, is put in a vehicle by the men.
The claim, which is in Hindi, says: “अभी अभी” *पाकिस्तान के प्रधानमंत्री को मारी गोली पाकिस्तान में”
The Quint received the video on WhatsApp from a user.
TRUE OR FALSE?
While the man being carried by men and policemen is indeed Pakistan PM Imran Khan, the video doesn’t show him being shot and subsequently injured. The video dates back to 2013 and is from when Khan slipped off the stage as got injured.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
Upon searching the video on Facebook with the claim we had received, we found several pages having shared the same clip. Some had shared the clip in February 2019 with the same claim, while others had shared the 22-second video in 2018 with a similar claim: “ताजा खबर मशहूर क्रिकेटर इमरान खान को मारी गोली पाकिस्तान में मचा हडकम्प” (Breaking news; popular cricketer Imran Khan has been shot, chaos has ensued in Pakistan).
Since we found the video to have been viral for a long time, the incident it depicted could not be recent. All claims consistently labelled the injured man to be Imran Khan, but we couldn’t see any wounds resembling that of being shot in the video. Hence, we ran a search with the key words “Imran Khan injured Pakistan”.
Our search led us to a news article by the BBC from 2013, which said that the leader of the PTI party had sustained a head injury after falling off a makeshift lift which was carrying him to the stage at an election rally in Lahore.
The article also went on to say, “A dazed and bloodied Mr Khan was later seen being carried away by supporters to a vehicle which drove him to a local hospital”, which exactly matched the video we had seen.
BBC also had the full video of the incident, which showed the political leader falling off the lift at a rally in May 2013. The Telegraph gave more details about the accident.
The same clip as the one we had received had also gone viral in 2018, claiming to show Khan being beaten up at his home.
The claim, thus, is false, as the video it is shared with is old and shows Khan’s condition after the aforementioned accident and not after being shot.
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