Claim: The government has announced Eid ul Fitr holidays from 9 April to 13 April 2024.
Fact: The Ministry of Interior officially refuted these notifications on 31 March, declaring them fake. Moreover, an official notification published on the Cabinet Secretariat division’s website on 4 April states that Eid holidays are from 10 to 13 April 2024.
Since 29 March 2024, a notification (archive) allegedly published by the Cabinet Secretariat was widely shared on social media, including on X and Facebook, claiming that the government has declared Eid ul Fitr holidays from 9 to 12 April 2024.
Fact or Fiction?
Official notifications regarding public holidays are typically published on the Cabinet Secretariat’s website. This is the standard procedure for disseminating such information to ensure authenticity and avoid confusion.
Upon examination, Soch Fact Check found the notification in question was not published on the Cabinet Secretariat division’s website.
We searched the web for the phrase “Eid holidays 9 April” and found the Ministry of Interior issued a statement to The News International on 31 March 2024, explicitly rejecting the notification as fake in an article titled “Has govt notified Eid ul Fitr holidays from April 9 to 12?”
Furthermore, an official notification was published on the Cabinet Secretariat’s website on 4 April 2024. This notification announced the Eid ul Fitr holidays from 10 to 13 April 2024. Since both notifications claiming Eid holidays on different dates, i.e., 9th and 10th April, cannot be real, the one published on the finance division website must be the original, and the image in the claim is doctored.
Virality
The false notification was viewed thousands of times on social media and posted dozens of times on various platforms. Soch Fact Check found the notification published on Instagram here, X here, here, here and here, and Facebook here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The notification circulating on social media is fake. It fails to align with the official procedures for holiday announcements and is directly contradicted by an official statement from the Ministry of Interior and the actual notification published on April 4, 2024.
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Background image in cover photo: The News International
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