Claim: A visual shows pictures of three different PTI workers allegedly injured during clashes with the police in Lahore on 8 March 2023.
Fact: The picture in the centre is from 2014 and is unrelated to the PTI, while the other two photos are, in fact, of the same individual but from different times and angles.
On 8 March 2023, Pakistani anchor and YouTuber Imran Riaz Khan posted a picture of three bloodied individuals (archive) allegedly injured during a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) rally in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, on Wednesday, with the caption, “غداروں پر تشدد کا سلسلہ جاری۔ [The torture of traitors continues.]”
The rally was met with a government crackdown as police tried to disperse participants, using different methods — including water cannons — following the imposition of Section 144, which bans public gatherings, in Lahore.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check used reverse image search tools to ascertain that the image in the centre, which shows an older man with a bloodied face and clothes and police officers in the background, is not from the 8 March gathering of the PTI workers in Lahore.
Our search led us to a 17 June 2014 news report (archive) by South China Morning Post, when at least eight people were killed during clashes between riot police and followers of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief and cleric, Tahir-ul-Qadri.
The caption underneath the picture in the South China Morning Post report is: “Pakistani policemen arrest an injured protester in Lahore. Photo: AP”
We searched for the picture on the Associated Press (AP) Images gallery and found it here (archive) as credited to photographer K.M. Chaudary. The caption accompanying it is as follows:
“Pakistani policemen arrest an injured protester during clashes in Lahore, Pakistan, Tuesday, June 17, 2014. Police clashed Tuesday with followers of an anti-Taliban cleric critical of Pakistan’s government in the eastern city of Lahore, violence that killed at least five people, officials said. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)”
It is also available here (archive) on the British stock photography agency Alamy.
As for the men on the left and right side of the visual in question posted by Imran Riaz Khan, they are images of the same individual from different times at the same rally and a slight change in clothes.
In the photo on the left, the man is seen in a white kurta shalwar with spots of blood down the front. In the one on the right, he has a handkerchief with fresh blood dripping down wrapped around his neck.
What we found to be missing in the picture on the left is the handkerchief that he is seen wearing around his neck in the one on the right. However, we found an uncropped version of him here (archive) where the handkerchief can be seen in his right hand — something that was conveniently cropped out.
That the man was present at the Lahore clash on 8 March 2023 is not disputed in this fact-check.
Therefore, the visual in question is both misleading and false, the former being because different pictures of the same man are made to appear as two separate individuals, while the third is an almost decade-old image from another protest.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found out that apart from Imran Riaz, the talk show host and YouTube, ARY News Islamabad Bureau Chief Khawar Ghumman also shared the same on his legacy-verified Twitter account here (archive).
Moreover, Shehr Bano — a social media influencer and Class 7 student with more than 150,000 followers — also posted the image on her account twice, here (archive) and here (archive).
Other tweets can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The image was also shared on Facebook here, here, here, here, and here.
Interestingly, the same images were also shared in a Change.org petition (archive), which was shared by former Maritime Affairs Minister and PTI leader, Ali Haider Zaidi, here (archive).
Conclusion: The picture in the centre is from 2014 and is unrelated to the PTI. The other two photos are actually of the same person but from different times and angles.
Background image in cover photo: @PTIOfficial
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