Fact-Check: 2023 video from Pakistan falsely shared as recent.

A video has gone viral on social media showing some individuals climbing on the top of a mosque and trying to vandalize it. Users are sharing this video and claiming that People in Pakistan have demolished a mosque and are selling its iron and bricks for food.

Sharing this video on X, a user named Vijendra Aggarwal wrote: “People in Pakistan have demolished a mosque and are selling its iron and bricks for food. This is the third mosque demolished recently. They are saying, “If Allah cannot give us food then what is the need for mosques?” A community that once destroyed temples.

In addition, several users shared this video and made similar claims. The preview link can be seen here and here.

Fact-Check

In the probe, the DFRAC team found that the video was from Feb 2023 that has been misrepresented on X.

Using google lens, we reverse-searched the keyframes from the viral video that led us to a tweet by ANI with the date Feb 3, 2023. The tweet carried a similar screengrab from the shared video with the caption: “Pakistan: Ahmadi mosque in Karachi desecrated by unknown attackers”

For further investigation, we searched for keywords on Google related to the caption of ANI’s Tweet. In this process, we came across some reports by TOI, The Print, and Times Now published in February 2023.

The reports stated that in a shocking incident, an Ahmedi Mosque in Karachi was vandalised by suspected members of Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Labbaik group. Ahmedi Mosque’s minarets were broken in Sadar, Karachi, and miscreants fled.

Conclusion

It is evident from DFRAC’s fact-check that the viral video has been misleadingly shared on X. The video dates back to Feb, 2023, not the recent one.

Analysis: Misleading