Claim: A video shows two Hindu girls being lynched to death by a “Muslim mob” in Lahore during Ramzan.
Fact: The video shows women being harassed at a PTI rally back in 2016. It is neither recent nor related to any lynching.
On 6 April 2024, X (formerly Twitter) user @bhagwakrantee posted (archive) a video showing a physical altercation, with at least one man brandishing a stick and a group of women attempting to escape through barbed wires.
@bhagwakrantee captioned the video as follows:
“लाहौर जहां रमजान के पवित्र महीने में दो हिंदू लड़कियों को मुस्लिम भीड़ नोचने के लिए लाई ।साथ पाकिस्तानी भीड़ ने बेरहमी से नोचा । फिर धारधार हथियार से काट दिया ।
[Lahore where in the holy month of Ramzan two Hindu girls were brought by a Muslim mob to be torn apart. The Pakistani mob brutally tore them apart. Then cut them with a sharp weapon.]”
Ramzan is a holy month for Muslims when they fast from daybreak to sunset.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check did not find any reports of such a mob lynching that took place recently in Ramzan.
Using keyframes from the video, we were able to find a matching clip on Facebook posted on 21 May 2016 with the following caption:
“#PTI see how women treated in #PTI jalsas. #Pakistan #women #PMLN”
Taking cues from this, we searched Google with the phrases “pti women rally jalsa barbed wire 2016” and “pti women harassed lahore may 2016” and found the same footage included in a longer video report on the incident posted by Geo News on its YouTube channel on 4 May 2016.
Soch Fact Check also came across corresponding news reports of the event, as well as subsequent arrests and condemnations.
An opinion piece also carries a screenshot from the viral video as its thumbnail and includes this Facebook clip in the body.
According to a report by Dawn, the victims informed authorities “that after the rally some 50 to 100 men forced their entry into the pavilion reserved for women activists and started harassing them”.
“Police on Monday registered a case against around 100 unidentified men for allegedly harassing women workers of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) during its anti-corruption rally on The Mall a day earlier,” the publication wrote.
Similarly, The Express Tribune reported, “Lahore’s Civil Lines police registered a case against unidentified suspects for harassing women participants at the end of PTI’s gathering at Chairing Cross.”
Virality
The post by @bhagwakrantee has gained over 134,500 views as of writing time.
Soch Fact Check also found the video here, here, and here on X.
On Facebook, it was shared here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The clip is neither recent nor related to any lynching. It shows women being harassed at a PTI rally back in 2016.
Background image in cover photo: PTIOfficial
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