Claim: Students heckled Maryam Nawaz as she entered a hall at Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan.
Fact: The claim is false; the video in question is dubbed.
Following the Chief Minister of Punjab’s visit to Bahauddin Zakariya University to attend a ceremony, users shared a video widely on social media, with the following embedded text: “محترمہ کی انٹری پر سٹوڈینٹ نے اووووو کے نعرے لگانے شروع کر دے”
[Translation: As the lady entered, the students started chanting “Ooooo.”]
In the video, Maryam Nawaz can be seen entering a hall while students in the audience stand up to welcome her and some record a video of her on their phones.
Maryam Nawaz
On 5 December 2024, Maryam Nawaz, the Chief Minister of Punjab, launched the ‘Honhaar Scholarship Programme’, which aims to support students from public sector universities, graduate colleges, and medical colleges. Under the programme, 30,000 scholarships will be awarded annually to students across 68 disciplines. The Chief Minister has been visiting universities across Punjab to speak about the programme and award deserving students. Her visits have been covered widely by news outlets with footage shared across both television and social media platforms. A video from one such ceremony has been repurposed for the viral claim.
The ‘Oooo’ story
During a speech in December 2024, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif shared a story about a visit to Japan, where he passed by a Honda factory and heard an “Oooo” sound. Curious, he asked the director what was happening and was informed that it was the sound of workers protesting. Reflecting on the experience in his speech, he remarked, “Work didn’t stop; the protest continued, but they registered their protest simply by saying “Oooo.”
Social media users responded by creating videos to mimick and mock this part of the prime minister’s speech. Later in the month, PTI members also chanted “Oooo” as Shehbaz Sharif entered the National Assembly to register their protest.
Fact or Fiction?
The posts seemed like a joke or satire to us as it is unlikely for students to welcome the Chief Minister with derogatory chants. Such actions can often result in disciplinary actions from university administration, and the incident would have been widely reported in the news. Therefore, we conducted a keyword search to see if something of the sort was reported but did not find any credible news reports.
A key indicator that the viral video was dubbed is that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s voice can be heard in the background even though he does not appear in the clip. More importantly, the video has a CapCut logo at the bottom right corner. Capcut is a video editing application with several features including recording and replacing audio of videos. The video’s audio has likely been edited through the application.
To further investigate the claim, we reviewed other footage from the event and did not hear any unusual sounds such as “Oooo” at any point during her speech. Since the viral video features a projector screen displaying the text ‘Honhaar Scholarship,’ we narrowed our search to Maryam Nawaz’s recent visits to universities for the Honhaar Scholarship Programme and found footage from a ceremony held at Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan. The viral video appears to be from this event as Nawaz is in the same attire and the location seems to be identical as well.
A video shared on PML-N’s official YouTube channel, composed of clips from various moments in the ceremony, includes a clip of Maryam Nawaz smiling and waving to the audience as she enters the hall.
We also reviewed footage of Nawaz’s speech from Aaj News, Geo News, and Express News.
Besides clapping and cheering for Nawaz, the students cannot be heard making any unusual sounds such as “Oooo” at any point in the footage reviewed and mentioned above.
Virality
The claim gained significant traction on Facebook. It was shared here, here, and here. Archived here, here, and here.
On Instagram, it was shared here and here.
It was shared here on TikTok.
Conclusion: Students at Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) in Multan did not heckle Maryam Nawaz; the viral video is dubbed.
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Background image in cover photo: Capital TV/Maryam Nawaz Official
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