Claim: A video shows Pakistani politician and election candidate, Daniyal Aziz, slapping a cricket player.
Fact: The video does not show Daniyal Aziz and it is not from Pakistan. It depicts a physical altercation between two Indian politicians.
On 23 January 2024, the Facebook page ‘Pti Narowal’ posted (archive) a video showing an altercation that turned physical between two individuals in a public setting, where they are surrounded by people. The clip is captioned as follows:
“الیکشن کمپین کے حوالے سے دانیال عزیز کی کرکٹ ٹورنامنٹ میں بطور مہمان خصوصی شرکت سوال کرنے پر پولیس کی موجودگی میں کھلاڑی کو تھپڑ مار دیا
[In light of the election campaign, Daniyal Aziz participated in a cricket tournament as a special guest. [Aziz] slapped a player for asking a question in the presence of the police.]”
Ahead of the 2024 general elections in Pakistan, slated for 8 February, Soch Fact Check has observed an influx of false and misleading claims that may impact public opinion and voter behaviour.
Daniyal Aziz — a politician formerly associated with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) — is contesting elections as an independent candidate from his home constituency, Narowal-I (NA-75), as per the revised Form 33 available on the Election Commission of Pakistan’s website.
Aziz has served as a member of the National Assembly (MNA) and privatisation minister in the past.
Fact or Fiction?
When Soch Fact Check compared the appearance of the individual who is seen hitting another man, with that of Daniyal Aziz, we found no similarity between the two.
We also reverse-searched keyframes from the viral video and found multiple sources indicating that the man in the clip is not Aziz.
In fact, the video is not even from Pakistan but from Indian-administered Kashmir.
The Free Press Journal, an Indian media outlet, reported (archive) on 21 January 2024 that the physical altercation occurred between All Jammu & Kashmir United Movement’s leader and member of the District Development Council (DDC), Mohammad Ashraf Ganie, and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Youth President Jibran Dar.
“In a shocking incident, DDC (District Development Council) member Mohamad Ashraf slapped AAP leader Jibran Dar during the final ceremony of a cricket match in Kashmir,” the publication wrote. Its cover image features a screenshot from the same video.
Early Times, a newspaper from Jammu and Kashmir, also reported (archive) on the incident, stating that it occurred in Wakura, a village in the region’s Ganderbal district. Both Dar and Ganie “were invited as special guests at a sporting event”, it wrote. This publication, too, has a screenshot from the video as its cover image.
“The argument stemmed from allegations that Dar was trying to influence the youth to vote for his party,” The Kashmir Despatch wrote (archive).
Using the Urdu versions of the names of “Mohammad Ashraf” and “Jibran Dar” — “محمد اشرف” and “جبران ڈار” — we found a report on the same incident by ETV Bharat here (archive).
We also searched Dar’s X (formerly Twitter) account and found that he had uploaded a picture (archive) of a complaint he filed at the Shadipura Police Station on 21 January 2024.
@JmuKmrPolice @KashmirPolice @Gbl_Police @ZPHQJammu @OfficeOfLGJandK @manojsinha_ @AmitShahOffice @SrinagarPolice JKUM party DDC member namely Ashraf attacked me and breached my security ? Election ladna crime hai kya ? vote maang na crime hai kya ? @ECISVEEP @AmitShahOffice pic.twitter.com/EH7B2PvQFd
— Er.Jibran Dar (@iamjibrandar) January 21, 2024
The video was shared with the actual claim on Facebook, X, and Instagram by ‘The Kashmir Today’, Junaid Bhat, a Kashmir-based photojournalist, and @kashmir_news_hub_knh here, here, and here (archived here, here, and here), respectively, with captions reporting the incidence of a fight between Ashraf and Dar.
Multiple videos about the same incident have been posted on YouTube, as is evident through a keyword search here (archive).
Lastly, the uniform worn by the security personnel seen in the video is different from that of the Punjab Police, further proving that the video is not from Pakistan.
Virality
The video posted by ‘Pti Narowal’ has garnered more than 70,000 views as of the time of writing.
Soch Fact Check found that the clip was shared with the false claim by many pages leaning towards the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party of the incarcerated former prime minister Imran Khan. Some of these can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The video was also shared as a Facebook Reel here, here, here, here, and here.
On Twitter, we found the clip shared here and here, where it gained over 10,100 views and 2,000 views, as of the time of writing.
Talk show host Imran Riaz Khan also posted about the video but deleted his tweet later. A fan page of ARY News anchor Sabir Shakir also quote-tweeted a similar post — which was eventually removed — and received over 93,400 views. Both Khan and Shakir have propagated multiple false claims in the past.
Two X accounts with a large number of followers — PTI Maryland President Waqar Khan and PTI-leaning social media influencer Shaibi Malik — also posted the video but deleted it later.
Conclusion: A viral video does not show Daniyal Aziz slapping a cricketer and it is not from Pakistan either. It depicts a physical altercation between two Indian politicians.
Background image in cover photo: National Assembly of Pakistan
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