A WIDELY circulated post on social media platform X gained traction on Monday with the insinuation that the PML-N shared a manipulated image from its Mansehra rally the same day to inflate the crowd size. The claim is false since the original image shared does not match the circulated image.

According to fact-checking platform iVerify Pakistan, the post was shared by an account under the name, picture and appearance of journalist Haroon Rasheed. The post did not mention the political party whose rally the image was from and neither did it mention the time, date, location, context or setting of the image.

However, the flags seen in the image, the symbol of a tiger on the flags and a stuffed toy of a white tiger all pointed it to being a PML-N rally.

The attached image was circled at three points to show a man wearing a purple shirt, with his arms crossed behind his head. The post gained over 184,000 views as of the time of writing and was shared by PTI’s economic affairs spokesperson Muzammil Aslam as well.

The iVerify platform traced the image to one shared by the PML-N Punjab chapter on its official X account on Monday at 6:12pm.

Comparing the circulated image and the one shared by the party showed that the man in the purple shirt was only present in the middle of the picture shared by the PML-N. He could not be detected at the other spots as circled in red in the circulated photograph.

Furthermore, the circulated picture was not shared by Rasheed’s official X account but a self-described “fan account”. The X handle for the fan account was spelt haroonn_natamam, while Rasheed’s official X handle is spelt haroon_natamam.

The fan account has an extra ‘n’ in its spelling of Haroon.

The platform concluded that the viral image from the PML-N Mansehra rally and the associated implication that the party shared a doctored photograph to inflate its attendance are false “as the original photo does not show the same purple-shirt man standing at three different places in the crowd”.

This fact check has been published in partnership with iVerify Pakistan — a project of CEJ and UNDP

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2024