Claim: A video posted on Facebook allegedly depicts Interior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb crying during the recent May 2022 Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) rally in Bahawalpur after members of the public called her a thief.
Fact: The video is not from the May 2022 Bahawalpur rally organized by the PML-N. The video is from 2018 and has been doctored to include audio of people chanting “thief” in the background.
On 30 May 2022, Facebook user Hameed Mulakhel posted a video with the following Urdu caption:
مریم اورنگزیب کا بہاولپور جلسے میں شاندار استقبال
Translated into English the caption reads, “Great welcome of Marriyum Aurangzeb in Bahawalpur.”
The video shows Aurangzeb weeping, as people can be heard chanting “ chor” (thief) in the background. Soch Fact Check decided to investigate the video after it was flagged by users on Facebook.
Fact or Fiction?
The video in question has the Samaa News logo on the top right corner. Soch Fact Check conducted a keyword search on Google using the phrase “Marriyum Aurangzeb crying”. The search turned up a 23-second video by Samaa News posted on 19 September 2018. The video is accompanied by the headline: “Marriyum Aurangzeb weeps tears of joy after Nawaz’s sentence is suspended.”
According to Samaa News, the video depicts Marriyum Aurangzeb crying tears of joy to over the September 2018 decision by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to suspend the sentences and order the release of former PM and PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif, along with his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Muhammad Safdar from prison. The three PML-N figures were sentenced in absentia by an anti-corruption court in July 2018 over properties they allegedly owned in Britain, following revelations in the Panama papers.
The clip of Aurangzeb shared by Samaa News does not contain the chants of “thief” heard in the video now doing the rounds on social media.
Another news channel “Public News” also posted the original video in which no such chants can be heard.
A visual comparison of the doctored video (left) and the Samaa News original video (right) can be seen below:
Doctored image (left) vs Original image (right)
Virality
Soch Fact Check assessed the virality of the video in question by conducting a CrowdTangle analysis. The Urdu caption referred to above was searched for a time period of 30 days from 14 May to 14 June 2022.
The results show that the video with the false caption and doctored audio received 4,400 interactions across 174 posts on Facebook.
The video was also shared here, here, here, here, and here on Facebook
Conclusion: The viral video does not show Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb crying after people yelled “thief” at her during the recent PML-N in Bahawalpur. The video in fact dates back to 2018 and has additionally been doctored to add audio of people chanting “thief”.