Claim: PTI leader Hammad Azhar said that the health of former Governor of Punjab, Omar Sarfaraz Cheema is declining and he is currently hospitalised in jail.
Fact: The claim is false as Hammad Azhar did not make such a statement. He refuted the news on X. Moreover, PTI’s lawyer Advocate Salman Shahid also debunked the claim saying that Cheema is fine.
On 21 October 2024, a fan account of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawyer Naeem Bukhari posted on X about the deteriorating health of former Punjab governor Omar Sarfaraz Cheema. The quote attributed to another PTI leader Hammad Azhar in Urdu reads,
تشویشناک خبر
عمر سرفراز چیمہ جیل کے ہسپتال میں آخری سانسیں لے رہا ہے۔
(حماد اظہر)
Translation: [Disturbing news. Omar Sarfraz Cheema is breathing his last in the jail’s hospital. – Hammad Azhar.]
Former Punjab Governor, Omar Sarfaraz Cheema is currently in jail after getting arrested in connection to the 9 May riots last year.
Fact or Fiction?
To investigate, Soch Fact Check conducted an advanced keyword search on Google with “Omar Sarfaraz Cheema, health and jail”. However, the search did not yield any new results.
However, a search on X revealed that Hammad Azhar debunked the claim in a post on 21 October.
When translated into English, the caption of Azhar’s post stated, “I made no such statement. According to my information Omar Sarfraz Cheema is fine, Alhamdulillah.”
Lawyer and member of PTI’s legal team in Lahore, Advocate Salman Shahid also debunked the claim in a post, stating that he had met Omar Cheema and could confirm that the former Governor was “perfectly healthy”. In the same post, Shahid added that Cheema’s “physiotherapy is going on” and requested users to pray for the PTI leader’s wellbeing.
Virality
On X, a fan account of journalist Imran Riaz shared the false claim, receiving 223.4k views, 8,000 likes and 3,300 reposts. It was also reposted by journalist Sabir Shakir here.
The claim was shared here and here on Facebook.
Conclusion: Posts on social media claiming that Omar Sarfaraz Cheema is breathing his last as he is hospitalised in jail are false. A member of PTI’s legal team and Hammad Azhar have refuted the claim on X.
—
To appeal against our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com