Claim: A video circulating on social media shows Lahore Qalandars’ fans celebrating their team’s PSL victory at the Liberty Roundabout in Lahore.
Fact: The video is actually of an independence day celebration from 14 August 2021.
Fact or Fiction?
On 28 February 2022, Facebook page Sunday Times posted a video claiming it shows fans celebrating Lahore Qalandars’ PSL victory at the Liberty Roundabout in Lahore.
Qalandars defeated Multan Sultans in the final of Pakistan Super League’s seventh edition at the Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore on 27 February 2022.
Multiple Facebook profiles and pages also picked up the claim, including here, here and here.
Soch Fact Check found the claim to be false and ascertained that the video is actually from 14 August 2021 and shows independence day festivities.
Soch Fact Check looked for independence day celebration videos using the search term “14 August 2021 celebration Liberty Chowk Lahore” on YouTube and found two clips — here and here — of the event. The clips were shared on 15 and 16 August 2021, respectively.
The clips have a watermark on it ‘@lifeatlahore’ which helped Soch Fact Check trace the source of the video to Life at Lahore’s Facebook page. The same video was posted by the page on 14 August 2021 with the caption, “Lahore Right now. Celebration at Liberty Chowk.” This video gained significant traction; receiving 1.7 million views and 54,000 likes.
Soch Fact Check also found another video on the same page from 27 February 2022 showing “Enchanting crowd celebrating Lahore Qalandars’ win”. Soch Fact Check took screenshots from the viral video mentioned above and compared it with screenshots from the 2021 video. As can be seen in the graphic below, it appears that the location in the videos is the same based on the architecture of the Liberty Roundabout and a building in the background, as well as the positioning of a flag pole and billboard.
Virality
Sunday Times’ post has received 10,000 views and 445 likes. The page is followed by more than 200,000 people on Facebook.
Pakistan Observer shared the video on Twitter with the caption, “Unbelievable scenes from Liberty Roundabout in Lahore after their home team wins the HBL PSL 2022 trophy. Footage submitted by a fan.” Their tweet gained significant traction receiving more than 234,000 views.
Multiple other users on twitter also posted the video including here, here and here.
Conclusion: The video in question does not depict Lahore Qalanadars’ fans celebrating their team’s PSL victory at the Liberty Chowk in Lahore, but it is from a 2021 independence day celebration.