After Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said a man threatened to stab him in London, an edited video of politician Nawaz Sharif mocking him was viewed hundreds of thousands of times online. However, the video is misleadingly edited from longer footage, in which Sharif essentially criticizes those harassing Pakistani officials after a series of incidents in Britain.
“What happened to Khawaja Asif is written in his fate,” read an Urdu-language Facebook post shared by Qasim Khan Suri, a senior leader in the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.
Asif was reportedly threatened on the London Underground on November 11, the latest in a wave of harassment cases involving Pakistani officials and politicians in Britain, allegedly by PTI supporters (archived link).
He told Pakistan’s Geo News that he believed a PTI supporter was behind the attack, for which he had filed a formal complaint with the police. PTI has denied any responsibility (archived link).
The post shows a video showing three-time former Prime Minister Sharif saying, “The way Khawaja Asif was treated was written in his fate.”
The Facebook post added: “Now they call their humiliations their fate,” apparently referring to members of Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.
The post was viewed more than 111,000 times after it was shared on November 13.
Screenshot of the fake post, taken on December 5, 2024
The video made the rounds in similar Facebook and X posts, receiving more than 200,000 views.
Sharif’s PML-N heads a coalition government led by his brother. After elections in February, loyalists of ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan won the majority of seats in parliament.
Khan has been jailed since August 2023, sidelined by dozens of lawsuits he says were filed to prevent his comeback in the election, which was marred by rigging of allegations.
Since elections in February, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has defied the government’s crackdown with regular demonstrations.
Press conference in London
Reverse image searches of the video found an Instagram post shared by Sharif’s PML-N party on November 14 (archived link).
The post shows the same images of Sharif alongside Asif and Maryam Nawaz Sharif – chief minister of the state of Punjab and Nawaz Sharif’s daughter.
Further keyword searches yielded a longer broadcast of the press conference, shared by Pakistan’s Samaa TV.
A screenshot comparison between the fake post (right) and Sharif’s London presser (left) can be seen below.
Screenshot comparison between the fake post (right) and Sharif’s London press (left)
At 6:09 in Samaa TV’s video, Sharif was heard saying in Urdu, “The way Khawaja sahib (sir) was treated, it is written in their fate that they will just chase cars.”
“Car chasing” appears to refer to previous incidents where PTI supporters harassed politicians and officials by chasing their cars and chanting slogans against them.
“They have nothing better to do than follow cars and chant slogans. This is their training and care. This is written in their fate,” Sharif added.
Nowhere in the press did Sharif criticize Asif.
