Claim: A sniffer dog of Karachi police has been stolen.
Fact: No sniffer dog has been stolen. The SSU says they do not have police dogs and the K-9 Unit at the Garden Police Headquarters, Karachi, also refuted the claim.
On 6 January 2023, Twitter user @Karachi__Wali posted a picture showing a news ticker seemingly run during a Samaa TV bulletin. The news card reads, “کراچی پولیس کا چور پکڑنے والا کتا چوری [The sniffer dog of Karachi Police has been stolen].”
The tweet went viral, being viewed more than 11,500 times and receiving 41 comments, 152 retweets, and 562 likes.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check used Google Lens, as well as text from the news ticker, and found news reports by Geo News Urdu and the Daily Jang from 13 April 2017. Another outlet, Daily Pakistan, posted the same on 15 April 2017.
The news reports by Geo News Urdu (L) and the Daily Jang (R) were originally published on 13 April 2017
The image resurfaced a few months later, in October 2017, here and here.
Soch Fact Check visited the Special Security Unit (SSU) of the Sindh Police. We met Reserve Inspector Akhtar Zaib, who told us that the SSU does not have any sniffer dogs and, therefore, no dogs have been stolen.
We then visited the K-9 Unit at the Garden Police Headquarters, where the police dogs’ caretaker — who refused to provide his name — denied reports of a stolen dog, saying, “That news is from three or four years ago.”
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the claim here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here on Facebook. We also found it here, here, here, and here on Twitter.
Pakistani television host Aftab Iqbal also took up the news — as real — on his show ‘Khabarhar’ and posted it on his verified Facebook page.
Conclusion: No sniffer dog has been stolen. The SSU says they do not have police dogs, and the K-9 Unit at the Garden Police Headquarters also refuted the claim.
Background image in cover photo: Jusdevoyage