Claim: A photo shows Khadijah Shah wearing sweatpants and a cropped top while posing on a rooftop.
Fact: The image does not show Khadijah Shah but Elnaaz Norouzi, an Iranian-German actor and model.
On 24 May 2023, Facebook page ‘REALITY.of life’ uploaded a post (archive) comprising two pictures, one showing a woman prisoner in police custody with her face covered and the other depicting a young woman wearing sweatpants and a cropped top.
The post is captioned as follows:
“خدیجہ شاہ کو پورے کپڑے پہنانے ہاتھ میں تسبیح اَللّٰهُ اَللّٰهُ کروانے پر پنجاب پولیس کا شکریہ
[Thanks to the Punjab Police for dressing Khadijah Shah in full clothes, getting a rosary in her hand, and making her remember God.]”
Khadijah Shah — who is the daughter of former finance minister Salman Shah and the granddaughter of former Pakistan Army Chief Gen (r) Asif Nawaz Janjua — is a fashion designer, the face behind women’s clothing brands Elan and Zaha, and a staunch supporter of the ex-prime minister Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.
Did you know an AI-generated photo of a PTI protester was passed off as real?
Shah was reportedly (archive) taken into custody after she turned herself in to the Punjab Police over allegations that she led an attack on Jinnah House — the residence of the Lahore Corps Commander — during the protests that erupted over the arrest of Imran Khan. She had allegedly been in hiding.
Police claim to have conducted several raids to catch the fashion designer, against whom the charges include terrorism, according to a report (archive).
Fact or Fiction?
A reverse image search led Soch Fact Check to the Reddit community, r/ElnaazNorouziFans, where we found this 22 May post (archive).
Elnaaz Norouzi is an Iranian-German actor and model who has appeared in “Sacred Games”, the first Netflix Original from India.
Read more: Viral TikTok of a woman defending Imran Khan is not Khadijah Shah
Taking that lead, we browsed through Elnaaz Norouzi’s social media profiles and found the same picture on her Instagram (archive), Twitter (archive), and Facebook (archive).
Norouzi posted the Instagram carousel on 22 May 2023 and tagged photographer Ramesh Iyer, who also posted her pictures (archive) on their profile.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the image shared with the false caption here, here, here, and here on Twitter. We also found it here, here, here, and here on Facebook.
Also read: PTI worker not handed 10-year sentence by military court for stealing peacock
We also observed that multiple of the posts — both on Twitter and Facebook — were made by accounts apparently affiliated with Khan’s rival party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
Examples of these are this tweet (archive) by Rabia Khan, with the handle @RabiaKhanPMLN who describes themselves as a “Social Media Activist” and this tweet (archive) by Saib Sardar, whose bio states that he is the former social media head of the PML-N’s Azad Jammu and Kashmir chapter and a “Worker of Nawaz Sharif”, the party supremo and a former prime minister of Pakistan.
On Facebook, too, we found similar examples here, here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The image actually shows Iranian-German actor and model Elnaaz Norouzi, not Khadijah Shah.
Background image in cover photo: @PTIOfficial
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