Claim: Singer Farhan NFT recently met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and he performed his song Mian De Naray, which was written for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
Fact: Farhan NFT met and performed the song for Shehbaz Sharif at Sharif’s residence last year, not after he became prime minister.
Fact or Fiction?
On 15 April 2022, Facebook page Qasim Khan Suri shared a video claiming that Farhan NFT met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the PM house and performed his song, Mian de Naray, for him.
The caption of the post reads, “آج کل وزیر اعظم ہاؤس ایک سرکس کا منظر پیش کر رہا ہے شک ہو تو یہ ویڈیو دیکھیں۔ …[Nowadays, the prime minister house is presenting a circus scene. If in doubt, watch the video].”
The claim was picked up by multiple pages including, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, among others.
Soch Fact Check found the claim to be misleading. The singer met Sharif in 2021 at his residence and the video capturing him singing the popular PML-N song was posted to his Twitter account on 3 November 2021.
The old video of Farhan NFT is now doing the rounds on social media with the misleading claim that it depicts a “circus scene” at the Prime Minister House. In fact, as has been noted, the video was taken at Sharif’s residence and dates back to before he became prime minister in the recent political upheaval. .
On Twitter, the claim was shared by the verified account of political columnist Raheeq Abbasi. People engaged with Abbasi’s tweet in varying ways. While some highlighted the date of the original post, others, in light of what is seen in the video, posted derogatory remarks about the new prime minister.
Farhan NFT has issued a clarification stating that the video in question was recorded and initially posted on 3 November 2021. He also claimed that the resharing of the video now, after Sharif has taken office as prime minister, is propaganda initiated by Pakistan Tehreek-e–Insaf (PTI) members.
Virality
Soch Fact Check used Facebook’s search feature to check the virality of the video with the search term “آج کل وزیر اعظم ہاوس ایک سرکس کا منظر پیش کر رہا ہے ۔ شک ہو تو یہ ویڈیو دیکھیں ۔۔ ” …[Nowadays, the prime minister house is presenting a circus scene. If in doubt, watch the video].” and found at least 22 posts carrying the viral claim.
On Facebook, Qasim Khan Suri’s post gained significant traction with 448, 000 views, while posts by Hafiz Mumtaz Ahmed, Fahad Mughal and Zeshan Saleem Sheikh received 11,000 views, 1,700 views and 1,300 views respectively.
On Instagram, the video shared by mashriqtv.pk received 81 views.
Tweets carrying the claim by known figures with verified accounts like Raheeq Abbasi, Qasim Khan Suri and Moeed Pirzada received 15,000, 11,000 and 1600 retweets, respectively.
Conclusion: Farhan NFT did not recently meet and perform his song Mian de Naray for Shehbaz Sharif at the PM House. An old video that was recorded in 2021, prior to Sharif becoming prime minister, is now being reshared with a misleading claim.