Claim: A video shows Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal being heckled by a group of people at a fast food chain, just days after Pakistan’s top judge, Justice Qazi Faez Isa, was yelled by an employee at a local doughnut shop.
Fact: The video of Iqbal is old. The altercation with the planning minister took place in July 2022 and did not occur after the recent incident with Justice Isa.
On 26 September 2024, Facebook user ‘Abd Ullah’ posted (archive) a video showing a group of people heckling Planning & Special Initiatives Minister Ahsan Iqbal at a fast food restaurant. The clip also features a picture of former prime minister and founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan, as well as the following text:
“قاضی فراڈیے کے بعد پیش خدمت ہے احسان اقبال پھیلا دو ویڈیو کو ہر جگہ
[Presenting Ahsan Iqbal after the Qazi Fraudiya. Spread the video everywhere]”
‘Abd Ullah’, a digital creator who has over 60,000 followers on Facebook, appears to be a PTI supporter by the looks of their profile. The video they posted has been viewed over 3.4 million times and gained more than 132,000 reactions, 3,200 comments, and 45,000 shares.
Iqbal, a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader, held the Planning & Special Initiatives portfolio during the government that took over after Khan was ousted through a no-confidence motion and continues to hold this role in the incumbent administration led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif after the 2024 general elections.
CJP, Islamabad eatery, and PTI
The post comes just days after Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa was allegedly disrespected by an employee at a local doughnut shop when he visited the outlet with his family.
In a video, which appears to have been secretly filmed from behind the counter of Islamabad-based Crusteez Donuts, an employee — not visible in the clip — is heard asking Pakistan’s top judge if he is indeed “Isa Faez”. When Justice Isa questions why he wants to know who he is, the latter responds, “Lanat ho aap pe! [May you be cursed!]”
Justice Isa assumed the position of Pakistan’s apex judge on 17 September 2023. The relationship between him and the incarcerated Khan’s PTI has remained tense but it took a turn for the worse after his appointment and further deteriorated after the fact that he is presiding over many of the cases that the party filed alleging rigging in the 2024 general elections and its mistreatment following the 9 May 2023 riots.
The PTI has consistently voiced concerns about the CJP, challenging commissions that were led by him, seeking the recusal of Justice Isa from cases, and criticising the judiciary’s handling. Khan himself has accused him of being “biased” against the party and questioned his “mental fitness”. The apex judge, on the other hand, has remained consistent in his views, expressing “concern over the use of social media for launching campaigns against judges”, and has not provided any major relief to the party.
Last month, PTI Chairperson Barrister Gohar Ali Khan addressed a press conference, demanding a notification for the next CJP’s appointment be issued in order to ensure that Justice Isa was not provided a tenure extension. However, Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar clarified that the top judge has no interest in continuing beyond his term.
The party and its founder have also been vocally critical of the “Constitutional Package,” a set of over 50 proposed amendments that seek to form a Federal Constitutional Court and raise the retirement age of judges in the new court, among others. Political analysts and lawyers have said these may tip the balance of power between the executive and the judiciary.
CJP Isa is set to retire in October 2024 and the “Constitutional Package” has been widely criticised by the PTI as the Sharif government’s attempt to undermine the judiciary’s independence and protect its own interests.
Interestingly, it was in May 2019, during the PTI government, that a reference was filed against Justice Isa over “undeclared foreign assets”. While it was quashed later, Imran Khan later admitted that the move “was a mistake” and confessed that the order to go ahead with it “came from above”.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check conducted keyword and reverse-image searches, both of which led us to reports and social media posts from July 2022, indicating that the incident with Ahsan Iqbal took place over two years ago.
From multiple videos of the same incident, we found two that show that it took place near Bhera Interchange near Sargodha, on 8 July 2022; one of them, posted by The Express Tribune, was shot tilted, while the other was straight.
In its report, The Express Tribune wrote that the hecklers called Iqbal a chor, Urdu for thief, and quoted the minister as saying in a press conference in Lahore, “I had two options: I could either take action under code of criminal procedure but would not do so because there were women and children as well.”
Iqbal announced that he was leaving the matter to the people’s court but said he wanted “to register a complaint against the leadership of the party that encourages this behaviour”, while referring to the PTI, it added.
Dawn reported that the minister emphasised on the “disease of polarisation and hatred”, which was a “cancer” for Pakistan. “I say this with disappointment that we expected Imran Niazi, who was a sportsman, to teach his supporters sportsmanship in the country’s politics. But he did the opposite. His politics just spreads hatred in society. This poison is spreading so rapidly that if we don’t counter it, the society will be steps away from anarchy and civil war,” he added, according to the publication.
Another outlet quoted Iqbal as saying Khan needed “serious psychiatric treatment”.
PTI leaders — both current and former — criticised the minister, whereas others came to his defence.
Iqbal’s X posts from 2022
On his X (erstwhile Twitter) account, the federal minister made a series of posts — available here, here, here, here, and here — in which he talked about the incident, saying that while the family who heckled him considered themselves “elite”, they were actually “ignorant”, “crazy”, and “fascist”.
In one post, he explained what happened, writing, “Today, at a McDonald’s in Bhera, I ran into a Youthiyan family who apparently thinks they are elite but, instead of engaging in a dialogue, started shouting slogans like ignorant people. When they did not stop their sloganeering, people also raised slogans like ‘Accountability of Gogi, Pirni’. He is creating as ignorant and crazy followers as he himself is.”
“The portmanteau terms “Youthiya” or “Youthiyan” is used for PTI supporters, often in a derogatory manner. Gogi” refers to Farhat Shahzadi, also known as Farah Gogi, who was “reportedly a front person” of Khan, while “Pirni” is linked to the former first lady and the PTI founder’s wife, Bushra Bibi.
In two other posts, Iqbal wrote that the people who followed Khan and his PTI party were “like Hitler’s followers” and shared their pictures, saying they were the faces of people who are “trained based on Hitler’s playbook by Imran Niazi”.
Two days later, the people who jeered at the minister apologised to him; he posted a picture of their meeting and wrote, “The family involved in the Bhera incident came to Narowal to meet me, apologise for their actions, and expressed remorse and shame. I had already announced I won’t take legal action against them. We are all Pakistanis and we should not turn the right to disagree with each other into hatred and maintain mutual respect.”
The same day, he urged social media users to “save Pakistan from falling into chaos” and promote the hashtag “#اختلاف_کریں_مگر_نفرت_نہ_کریں [#DisagreeButDontHate]”.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the video is old. The incident it shows neither occurred after the one with Justice Isa nor does it have any connection to it.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found that the video was posted here, here, here, here, and here on Facebook, here on Instagram, here and here on TikTok, and here on YouTube.
Conclusion: The video of Iqbal is old. The altercation with the planning minister shown in the video took place in July 2022, not after the recent incident with Justice Isa.
Background image in cover photo: ahsaniqbal.pk
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