A WIDELY circulated post on social media platform X gained traction on Sunday, with the claim that armed PML-N workers opened fire on a Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) election office in Lahore and killed a number of people. However, no one was killed in the incident.

According to fact-checking platform iVerify Pakistan, a post was circulating on social media platform X a day ago with the caption: “In response to the shoe attack on Hamza Shahbaz after committing the worst injustice against the worker of TLP, PML-N leader Ghazali Saleem Butt and others fired at the TLP office in Lahore’s Badami Bagh and martyred political workers.”

However, the actual number of TLP workers allegedly killed was not mentioned in the post. A photograph of an individual wearing a red jacket laying on the ground with his eyes closed and blood near his head was also shared with the post.

The post received over 300,000 views and 3,800 shares.

According to DawnNews reporter Wasim Riaz, the incident’s FIR was registered at the Badami Bagh police station on Saturday on the complaint of TLP leader Muhammad Akram Rizvi under PPC Sections 109, 148, 149 and 324 and Section 7 of the ATA.

Rizvi said he and TLP workers were present in an election office near Madni Chowk when armed men brandishing weapons arrived and began mocking those inside the office, saying, “Who are you to contest elections against Ghazali Saleem Butt”.

Butt is the PML-N contestant for PP-146.

Rizvi said the armed men issued death threats and opened fire on those inside, injuring them. The FIR listed injuries that various TLP workers inside the office sustained, but did not mention any deaths.

Next, the iVerify platform checked the statement issued by the TLP spokesperson condemning the incident; it did not mention any deaths, either.

The iVerify team contacted Ibn Ismail Shami, a member of the TLP media team, via DawnNews reporter Adnan Sheikh, and questioned him about the alleged deaths. He told the platform that no party workers had been killed.

Shami said the person in the circulated picture was seriously injured after being shot in the eye and was being treated at the Lahore General Hospital’s ICU.

The platform thus determined that the claim about TLP workers killed during political violence by PML-N workers in Lahore was false.

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

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2024